


May You Ever Return

by Hannah



Series: Autumn's Advancing [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Dark, Post-Canon, Vampire Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 43,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25674400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: On May 28, 2009, Spike and three Slayers walked into the woods.On June 22, 2010, he walked out alone.This is what happened in between.
Relationships: Drusilla & Spike (BtVS)
Series: Autumn's Advancing [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1515974
Kudos: 18
Collections: Fic Journal of the Plague Year





	1. all good dreamers pass this way some day

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea for this fic about a year ago, when I wrote a few throwaway lines in a couple of other things that got me thinking, and wondering, about the circumstances behind them. Then the COVID-19 crisis began looming, and I started to feel pressure and concern - no clear information being shared, looming threats no one could identify or seemingly easily prepare for, vague and ambiguous news being denied, getting cut off from close friends, an ominous sense of foreboding.
> 
> Then came the quarantine lockdown, and with it, the understanding this was really happening - followed soon by the undeniable truth those in power were largely complicit in causing the danger and allowed it to flourish without any thought to ending it for the health and safety of those most at risk.
> 
> About halfway through writing this, the 2020 BLM protest movement began its resurgence. Not to say in the least fictional man-eating vampires are at all comparable to the genuine oppression Black, Indigenous, people of color, and other minority groups experience in the real world. More that, certain system are so corrupted they're beyond fixing and ripping them out by the roots and starting afresh with something new, whether real or fictional, is the only solution. And sometimes, writing through destroying the fictional systems helps make the work of tearing down the real ones a little easier to face.
> 
> -
> 
> Thanks to [andtheyfightcrime](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/andtheyfightcrime/pseuds/andtheyfightcrime), [GingerKI](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerKI/pseuds/GingerKI), and [Petra](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Petra) for early and steady encouragement; to [Tinsnip](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinsnip/profile), [wolf_shadoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolf_shadoe), and [ZiGraves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZiGraves/profile) for holding me accountable; [SzmattyCat](https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewuser.php?uid=17313) for helping me with the Polish countryside; [bewildered](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewildered), [KelasParmak](https://kelasparmak.tumblr.com/), [Niamh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niamh/pseuds/Niamh), and [YellowB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowb/pseuds/yellowb) for beta reading. Particular thanks go to [actiaslunaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperRegina/pseuds/actiaslunaris), for telling me what didn't need to be there and helping me figure out what should stay, and a shout-out to [Salt and Sage Books](https://www.saltandsagebooks.com/) for their consultation services, which I found tremendously useful in the late drafting stages. 
> 
> Title comes from "Pitch or Honey" by Neko Case.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "The Last Time I Saw Richard" by Joni Mitchell.

Spike held still over the sink, shoulders low, as Dru slid the electric razor over his skull. Back to front, in strong and steady movements, the raggedy towel draped beneath him catching every lock and strand that fell from his head. In the dim light, they stood out against the grey, and he watched them tumble away with a skittering, cautious regret that it’d come to this. Not that it wasn’t time for a change – it’d been nearly forty years since he’d first picked up a bottle of peroxide; long enough for any style, classic and timeless as it was, to start itching for a replacement look. More that he’d rather not have forced it to come to pass like this.

Dru blew gently over his naked scalp, and giggled at his shiver. “All done.”

He ran his hands over her handiwork, regret battling with novelty as he marveled at the texture. He’d always worn hair, never gone without it, relying on dyes and bleaches to shift between fashions. Hadn’t ever had it shorter than how it’d been only ten minutes earlier. Dru cocked her head, not quite smiling, and set the razor down for her hands to join his, laughing out a little growl as she scratched along with him.

She went from not quite smiling to not smiling at all as he took her hands in his. “Your turn, love.” He held her hands loosely, guiding her down.

Dru looked up at him, frowning. “Don’t want to.”

“I know,” he soothed her. “But we agreed. You said you would. For protection.”

“Still don’t want to.” She turned around to face away from him. “Angelus never made me cut my hair.” Spike settled his hands on her shoulders, squeezing gently. She put hers over his, stroking his fingers. “I’m not blaming you,” she said. “Not a mottled little speck of it. The blame’s due to those wretched girls you did in. I couldn’t see you caught. I saw it too late to see you safe from them, but I’ll not be idle in keeping you safe.” She bowed her head, then sat up straight. “Be gentle. I don’t remember how this goes.”

Spike had spent nearly twelve decades seeing to Dru’s hair. He’d spent the last few years on Buffy’s – Dawn’s, too, when she needed or when she asked. And Darla’s, a few times, every incident memorable, always worth the blood Angelus took from him after. He’d never lost his taste for a woman’s fine hair. And Dru’s was fine, so fine, even for all the years she’d spent in the woods. He ran his hands through her locks, the faint glow from the electric switches suddenly not enough, and he leaned over, flicked it on, and lit up the shabby hotel bathroom to take in the full color of her hair against his own pale skin. She wriggled a bit, but kept her back straight and her head up.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, and she did.

He took a fresh towel, draping it over her shoulders. He took the ribbons she’d picked out, plaiting and tying off her hair to keep the whole affair as neat as he could. He took the scissors, and as gently as he could, guided her chin so she was looking one way, then the other, finally moving her around to see to her face, as he snipped and clipped and cut as carefully as he knew how, never letting the metal touch her cheeks, because at least that much he could give her.

He took no joy in it, and when he was done, she shook her head and whimpered.

“And glory has departed,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” he said, handing her back her hair. She took it, sniffling, then brought it to her face and sniffed it deeply.

“This is the one time,” she said, voice firm in her sadness. “The _only_ time. Not again. I swear to you, if I walk upon this earth another thousand years, this will be the last time I’ll ever cut my hair.”

He sank to his knees, to look up at her face. “Hair grows back.”

Dru’s face was the same as ever, as always. Framed in a flapper’s cut, neat as he could, a bob to do both Bernice and Lulu Brooks proud, her eyes looked too large to fit, all her fears spilling out of them without a tear being shed. She nodded. “It does, at that.”

“I’ll see you with long hair again,” he promised, running a hand over her cheek. “You’ll look back on tonight and you’ll think, that wasn’t so long.” She shook her head, placed her hand over his to press it close, closing her eyes and holding tight. When she let go, he ran his hand over her head, marveling at how quickly his fingers ran out of hair when barely minutes earlier, it flowed with such grace.

“We’ll need to find ourselves a photobooth,” he said, and she laughed. A little laugh, barely worth the breath, but even so: a laugh. “They’re hard to find in the States nowadays. You’ll see ’em at carnivals, mostly. Novelties. Nowadays everyone’s got their own cameras, they’re even sticking them into phones these days, but there’s still a few little booths tucked away. You know, towards the back.” He gestured, and she gave a small smile. “Remember the ones in New York?”

“I do,” she said softly. “Out on the pier. At the parks and in the squares.”

“They couldn’t’ve gotten rid of _all_ of them,” he went on. “Definitely not here. We’ll keep an eye out, save a couple euros for when we spot one – there’s gotta be a few out in Białystok, yeah? Big city like that. How’s that sound?”

“Not yet.” She stood. “Not for a time. A fine idea, but not just yet. Eyes all around, every corner and lamppost, worse than ever. Let them blink and we’ll make a mad dash across the fields. Trust me, they’ll blink first. Always have, always will.” 

“And you’ll let me know when to run?” Spike gathered up their hair, sweeping it together, long and dark with short and light, towel and all, into a small paper bag he’d picked out just for this.

“The very moment,” Dru promised.

They lay down together, face-to-face, like the old days. Running more wouldn’t do them any good; running right away was the time you usually got caught. He’d had his fill of running for the moment, and it was almost sunrise, anyway. Dru put her hand around the back of his skull, making him shiver again, and she pulled him close. He wrapped his arms around her, the solid weight of her in his embrace so different from Buffy’s quaking, shaking warmth, and beneath the covers, they slept out the day.

By the door, against the wall, the room’s original guests lay bound and gagged in case Dru’s thrall wouldn’t hold them steady through the day.

When night crept in, the two of them crept out, leaving the door to the room swinging open and letting the thrall fade out on its own. They swapped one stolen car for another, nothing with even a hint of flash or fancy to it. Something old and reliable that’d blend into the rest of the old Soviet blocks. Something that’d get them a fair way from where they started the night, same as the last three he and Dru had been together. In the old days, they’d have gone for something with style and substance, because fuck anyone coming after them. Time was, they’d have feasted on the couple that’d been foolish enough to open the door to Dru. Not so much right now. More bodies would make a trail, and despite what Angelus had said of him, Spike had some idea how to disappear if he had to.

One of the major steps was to make sure there wasn’t a trail. Be certain there wasn’t anything to track you with. Hide everything. Make sure it was all gone. 

Their hair burned merrily under the stars. The first grassless field they’d found, the late spring harvest of asparagus leaving the soil freshly tilled, a tang in the air from misshapen, discarded produce left to rot under the sun. Spike could smell the flies, the maggots ready to hatch, rotting vegetables and leftover fertilizer, the faint aroma of human shit wafting over from the ditch on the distant side of the field. Compared to all that, burning hair was a balm to his nose. The dry grass and twigs worked well enough as tinder, and the flames ate their hair fast, gone in a blink. It didn’t stick around to burn like the towel, when they threw that onto the fire; barely here and then gone. But the smell lingered, fetid, sulphuric, like a flash-bang smoke grenade of Hell in summertime. Dru pulled a face as the breezes pushed the smell away from them and the towel began to char and smolder and finally give into burning up. It took a while, but it all finished eventually, just some ash that’d be of no use to anyone. They buried it anyway. 

That finished, he and Dru looked each other in the eye, nodded, and walked back to the car.

The countryside slid by as they drove, taking their time. Not in a hurry to be anywhere, not in a rush to get someplace new. Moving at an even keel to not be in one spot too long. His face was already plastered all over, wanted for rewards and bounties, and that at least was a little like old times. Cutting their hair would keep people from noticing either of them straightaway, get them a precious few seconds if someone stopped to take a closer look.

He wasn’t stupid enough to think it’d die down over a few weeks. Not even to hope for such a thing. God knew how long it’d be before it was safe to head back. He’d known things were going south, rumblings and discontentments, but he’d been foolish enough, grown relaxed enough, given sufficient enough privileges that he’d let himself leave old instincts and lessons at the door.

Spike rolled down his window and hissed at the feeling of wind over his head, but didn’t roll it back up. Best to get used to it.

Dru rolled down her window and let the wind ruffle what was left of her hair. She propped an elbow against the door, bracing her chin in her hand, and for a moment, her face drawn in moonlight, he was back in Kansas in 1945, his belly full of farm-fresh farmer’s blood, their then-new car chortling down the dirt backroads fast as cars could go back then. Fast as cars could go back then was a moderate speed now. Way of the world, that was. Always was, in all ways.

Not running from or to, that night. Just running for the joy of it.

“Turn here,” Dru said, and he did without question.

They soon passed a sign noting an agroturystyka 500 meters off the main road; it was barely worth the mention, when they arrived, which was what they’d wanted. Another little farm stay, another brief wait in the parking lot, another friendly couple charmed and bound and set aside to lie on the floor all quiet like a pair of Dru’s old dolls that’d always been knocking about in the DeSoto’s boot. The lady had a dress that nearly fit Dru; the man too large and broad for Spike to take anything, even his overcoat.

“Blasted farm stock,” he muttered, shoving the suitcase away, and went to take a shower. Scrub the smell out of – right. No scrubbing the smell of anything out of his hair, not for another few months.

Even at a gentle temp, the water hit his over-sensitive scalp like hot needles. Still unused to it, still coming around to the idea of his hair being gone. Times like this, he wondered if a reflection would help him adjust. See it, over and over, like that’d make a difference beyond how it felt every time he shook his head or a breeze came by.

The shower’d fogged up the mirror. Spike drew phantom patterns in the steam – lines and shapes that seemed to appear by magic. Dru followed after him, and they spent the day like they had the one before, busy waiting for night to come. When it finally settled in with all the shadows of the day running free across the world, he slipped out of the room to the main office, slipping back in after he’d laid claim to the day’s newspaper. Having the lady read it in Polish while Dru followed her thoughts and translated them for Spike as best she could was a tricky piece of work, but they managed to find the most important item after only twenty-four minutes: they weren’t after her. After him, of course, and happily at that, they’d be sure to find him in just a few days if they kept focus and discipline, always holding sight to why they were trying to find him. But not Dru. They weren’t coming after her. She was flying well beneath their radar. They didn’t seem to have any idea she was around to be worried about, much less track down for colluding with the Slayer of Slayers.

Then again, she’d been a surprise to Spike, too. He’d thought those dreams were just on account of being near some old familiar places. Rushes of nostalgia and memory and all that. Not his sire’s presence once again so close.

“Not much here,” Dru said, counting the money out of wallets and purses and hidden jacket pockets. “There’s hardly even any coins.”

“Everyone’s switching to plastic these days, pet,” Spike said. “Cash is just for girlie shows and quiet bartering.”

The money was for getting out of trouble if they had to. Anything else they needed or wanted, they’d take. That, at least, was still the same.

“You should leave,” he told her. “I can handle this myself. Saw myself through worse when I _was_ worse.”

“From that darksome land where you earned your spark.” She nodded. “Fighting through its torments while you were eaten from below. A nifty trick you’d managed, getting halfway ’round the world again in such a state.” She crossed her hands over her lap. “I won’t be leaving. Don’t ask again.”

“Just don’t want you puttin’ yourself in danger over me.” He reached out, caught himself, and shifted to reach towards the back of her neck. If she noticed his arm’s stuttering motion, she didn’t give any sign. “You’ve given up your forest, your hair…”

“Worth the price of it all to see you safe.” She put a hand over his. “Saw you needed me. Knew I could come, so here we are.” She pulled his hand around and kissed his knuckles. “We’d best be off soon.”

They made sure to thank the woman for Dru’s new dress and the man for his car and both of them for all their money before hitting the road again. The agroturystyka was close enough to proper, solid countryside it only took twenty minutes’ drive to find themselves some dinner. Cows coming in fresh from a field wasn’t Spike’s first choice, but a gentle bite just behind their ears or under their chin where people wouldn’t easily find it, something that could easily be wiped down right beforehand, when the animals had been eating nothing but grass for months now, was as good a meal as he and Dru could manage. The blood didn’t taste all that bad, not really, and it was easy to take enough to not be hungry and still leave the cows standing upright, or at least, wobbling on their hooves.

It didn’t fully satiate, but it sated, and he and Dru let their meals head back to the herd before getting back in the car. Still heading south, trying to get more raw distance behind them and some decent nighttime over their heads. If those girls had been _really_ clever, they’d have waited a few more weeks, tried to enact their plan when he had no night to run through, no dark to spare – him and Dru taking a night to burn their hair had been necessary, absolutely not postponable, and thankfully over fast enough they’d been able to get a decent amount of driving in afterwards. Give him and Dru six months and they’d have their run of this dank little patch of land, but now, with the Solstice looming, they were in a bad part of the world to be vampires. Which meant their first priority was getting somewhere better, fast. Bound southwest and away, no time to dawdle and take in the sights. 

Turning onto what would’ve been a backroad for America and was a major thoroughfare in Poland, they passed a sign for Warsaw in 200 kilometers – a beautiful city for them, once, all of society drawn up around the Whirlwind with so much feasting as to hardly _want_ to hunt, people nearly lining up to get eaten alive.

Cities were dangerous places when you were on the run, but they could offer their own kind of safety, if you knew how to look for it.

Dru turned on the radio, flicking through the static and the post-Soviet attempts at decent rock music before finding an American import station. She leaned forward, a little smile on her face. “I don’t know this one.” 

“Not surprising. She’s still new to the solo scene. Only a couple albums out so far,” Spike said. “Figured you’d like her, though. You don’t always get such a good singing range these days.”

“She’s all claws,” Dru said. “All claws and teeth, little sharp bits dragging into you. That!” She pointed at the radio. “Ah- _ah!_ Good jump in her voice. Not sudden. Waiting for the silence and _then_ going for the leap.”

Spike smiled, remembering Darla’s insistence on him and Dru each receiving a second classical education, Angel’s impatience with having to catch up to the children. “Knowing how to use the silence’s nearly forgotten in pop these days. Gotta fill up every second of every song, no sense of when to leave a moment empty. You need a break in the meter. Otherwise you got nothing but noise.”

The woman faded out, a man strode in, and then a couple people bantering on about what could’ve been anything from cereal to toothpaste with a catchy enough jingle at the end. Then the DJ got herself a moment to speak. Spike didn’t have enough Polish to get what she was going on about, but from her tone and the names he managed to catch, he’d guess she was complaining about old fogies and sticks-in-the-mud who didn’t know a decent song from a pig’s squeal, so here she was to set them straight. She went on for a while, long enough Spike wondered how much of the rant-gone-ramble was just her enjoying the sound of her own voice, but then came a heavy declaration, and they were back to modern music. A Canadian, this time; he was pretty well certain Dawn had the album the song came from. Not so much love, in this song, as loneliness, and loss, which was a way to sing about love, in its own way. The empty space around where love was meant to be.

Not a space he was ready to visit just now.

He reached for the dial, but Dru slapped his hand away, hissing for good measure. He took the hint and tried his best not to listen to the rest of the song.

The station faded away in its own time, jumping through static, as they drove on. Dru kept adjusting the radio, and for whatever reason she might’ve had or whatever urge she gave into, settled the dial onto three people talking in Ukrainian. Not a single blasted idea what they were going on about, could’ve been the merits of coconut oil for skincare for all Spike knew, but Dru seemed to like it, leaning back against the window to listen to human voices, and – 

He looked away. Focused on the road ahead. Not a lot of traffic this time of night, or probably ever, given this part of the country. Given this part of the world. Here, people drove to get from a little house in the middle of bloody nowhere to get somewhere else, somewhere better, someplace new. They kept driving even after the radio went quiet, a big stretch of nothing between where they’d come from and where they were going.

“It wasn’t always so lonely,” she told him. “Sometimes I’d find someone to talk to, for a short while, and that let me pass through the nights of no company.”

“Poachers?”

She hummed in agreement. “Trying to catch the last wild horses. Great big bison. Silly hunters. Even the kings knew not to trouble the little ones living in the trees.”

“Oh, they’ve come back, have they?”

“A few. Not many. They’ve still not got much patience for public faces. And their lady’s never any desire to see a dead thing crawling among their circles.”

“Don’t call yourself that, ducks.”

“Dead woman, then.”

“We’re not things.” He tightened his grip, the words of the girls echoing through his mind and soul. “I won’t have you thinking of yourself like that. It’s nasty talk from them that don’t know any better, who think they’ve got the full set of answers without thinking there’s yet another way to solve the problem. God knows I’ve called myself that enough, God knows it gets stuck in your head, I won’t hear it coming from you. I won’t. Don’t go doing that, Dru. Don’t go thinking of yourself as a thing. And don’t go saying sorry to me,” he shot out, hearing her pull in a breath. “I don’t need to hear any apology. I’m not the one what needs that.”

“Then I’ll say I’m sorry to myself,” Dru told him, “and try to listen to what my dear departed boy has to say to me.”

“Just so’s we’re both clear on that.”

“As perfect crystal.”

“Fine.”

He unclenched his knuckles. He hadn’t even been a creature or a beast in their eyes. The three of them – all girls barely Buffy’s age the second time she’d died. After he’d taken down the first of them, the other two had fallen fast, one right after another, and what _truly_ stank about it, the most petty and rank part of the mess, was that they’d honestly needed him that first part of the night. That they’d planned on making use of him for a proper mission, seeing to it that the Eldrazin was contained and not trampling through the countryside picking off little children anymore, three Slayers and one vampire enough muscle to take her down and send her off.

Then they’d said they’d hoped she’d be too much for him, and since she hadn’t, they knew they could lie to Buffy about what’d happened. What he’d done. That if any of them got away, that’d be more than enough for what they needed. That it didn’t matter he had a soul, didn’t matter he made the choice to _do good_ every day, not for what they had planned.

Knowing them, knowing how deep the rot went, they might well have hoped for this. Could’ve well thought it’d be another way to win, him killing them all. Bloody martyrs. Bloody fucking martyrs to the cause, no reasoning with them, only running and never looking back.

Warsaw loomed another hundred kilometers away. Morning would arrive into the world well before they’d reach the city, so they turned off the main road and onto something smaller, then onto a little gravelly detour. A little tree cover, a few scrounged blankets, a little duct tape to secure the windows and some careful maneuvering the backseat down, and he and Dru waited out the long, long day. There wasn’t enough room to get comfortable, barely enough for them to lie down; they had to lay on their sides and curl up tight to fit in the little space allowed to them. 

“We’ll find a bed tomorrow night,” he promised. She hummed quietly and scooted closer to him. He hesitated, then let the remaining air out of his lungs and laid an arm over her, holding her against his body.

Spike hadn’t forgotten the feeling of another vampire’s body next to his own. Simply that after years of sharing his bed with a living, breathing human, he wasn’t used to it anymore. But he remembered fast. Dru lay quiet, and in the absence of the sounds of a body – always quaking and shivering, always moving ever so slightly, always busy with the business of life, even at its most quiet a riot of sound and motion compared to a still, silent vampire – the noises of the world easily found their way into his ears. Trees brushing against each other, small mammals padding along the ground, a hawk screeching in glory over a happy kill. Tall grass, not quite dry just yet, rustling with the wind and the careful steps of all the little animals. It was still wild enough out here for those little animals to come out during the daytime. Other places they’d wait, and still others, they’d all left behind ages ago.

Daytime sounds in his ears and Dru in his arms, Spike drifted off into sleep; nighttime sounds in his ears and his arms empty, he jolted awake. Hitting his head on the roof, swearing loudly, no sign of her and no idea – he scrambled around, sniffing, trying to catch some wisp of her and find any hint – then he saw a door was open, with safe darkness on the other side.

She was standing in the field, smiling, as fireflies alighted around her.

“Aren’t they a dream?” she asked. “So eager to find themselves a lover, so happy to put themselves in danger.” She pushed out a little frowning noise, and held out a hand, and shot it out in a darting motion, cupping it around a firefly to hold in her hands. She strode over to Spike and loosened her fingers enough he could see a flash between them. “Little suns. Lighting up the world for one special lady. Not quite how it went for you, dear Spike, but close enough to rhyme.”

“Very nearly,” he said, as she let the firefly go. It flew away deeper into the fields, flickering; then he blinked and couldn’t find it against the rest of the dark, shaking trees. They sounded different at night, though he knew they shouldn’t. Just his mind playing tricks on him because he _expected_ things to sound different with the sun gone and the sky safe for him to walk under again. Could just be he wasn’t hearing it through a window and some blankets. No reason to think it to be something more than that.

Except for how it _was_ different to run his hands over the grass and hear the sounds right as they happened. Watching the trees and letting his eyes and ears and nose catch everything coming in all the ways the world lived and hold each of those sensations in his mind and let them flow together and let more come in. He took a deep breath and let his eyes linger on the leaves and tilted his head and listened in closely and let it all blend together, the owls leaping from the branches flapping upwards with their feathers almost too soft to make a sound against the night and the stink of cars only a faint hint with the wind blowing just right and no people around for as far as he could smell. The night alive around him and a better cathedral to the glory of the heavens and the earth than any human hand could ever dream to make.

“You don’t get skies like this anymore,” he marveled. “Not nearly as much as you used to.”

“Darkness is always first to go, fighting against the modern world,” Dru said. “What they fear the most, little soft humans, is what they try to kill right away, soon as they’ve found themselves the proper tools for its murder.”

“Always happy to give ’em reason to be afraid of the dark,” he admitted, picking out familiar stars. “You know they got little nighttime sanctuaries? For astronomers and suchlike. Places they don’t let electric lights go. Like darkness is some rare bird and it’s gotta be kept safe.”

“Hadn’t known that, no.” She stepped closer to him. “But it’s good some of them don’t want to do away with it all. Not entirely.” Spike felt something land on his cheek; Dru picked it off gently, and the firefly lit up on her finger, making them both gasp in delight, before it lifted both halves of its spotted carapace and took off, flying straight up at the sky.


	2. we can always find the trouble, we don't need no help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Raising Hell" by Kesha.

They found themselves a proper bed, eventually. Some three weeks later, when summer was in its full and proper splendor, and there was barely any night to be had. They didn’t dawdle or drag their feet along the way. They just stuck to the edges of civilization, changing cars a couple of times and trying not to find themselves in a village bigger than a few little houses clustered around a small grocery store and an even smaller post office. Anything bigger than that, they might be keeping an eye out for his face, might be setting down snares to trap anything stupid enough to wander by.

Anything that size or smaller, it was a better-than-even chance the people living out that far from civilization still remembered what the cities had let so many forget. Still knew they were barely a roof and a fire and a knife away from being eaten up by the world’s hungry mouths with all their itching teeth.

Usually left their cows unattended, though. And so long as there weren’t reports in the papers or rumors spreading through the little taverns about a rash of strange bite marks popping up on the old Bessies – better than an internet café to hear what was happening on the ground level soon as there was anything worth hearing – it was the best way for them not to go hungry. Soon as they headed into a town, or a city, it’d be time to start looking at other ways to eat dinner, most of which caught people’s eyes for one reason or another.

Even so. The earth was tilting as it made its way around the sun. Better to be hungry a while than risk any carelessness.

The sight of a train station, with its full and proper accompaniments, was enough of a nudge to make them head off in the direction of the nearest real spot of civilization, a hotel room they didn’t have to share. Said full and proper accompaniments did delay them a few minutes, though. Long enough to slide a few coins into the slot and wait for the photobooth to work its magic. Dru’s hair hadn’t grown long enough to make any real difference, and neither had his; he could tell every time he ran a hand over his head, still marveling at the smoothness and the way the fuzz caught his palm.

He looked naked and hungry. Even his smile when he’d been thinking of Buffy _specifically_ to call up some joy looked forced. His hair being gone made the flesh on his head look thin and stretched, like he might as well just have a skull on his shoulders, never mind a face. The flash had been bright enough he could imagine what he looked like under the train station’s lights, and took some comfort in knowing that there wasn’t anyone around except the ticket agent to see two people leaning against the wall next to the photobooth, trying to recognize the faces they saw in the little pictures. 

Dru spent a while looking at hers, gripping them tightly as she ran a hand over her bare neck, making amused little noises low in her throat.

“The moon goes hidden when it suits itself,” she said quietly as they ripped up the photos. “Shying its face away from every peering eye, up ’til they shot those prancing dancers ’round the back. Not as bad as I’d worried, all the skin under my hands.”

Spike smiled, grabbing a handful of scraps and stuffing his pockets with them. “Could shave your head like mine and still look more beautiful than any other woman here.”

“Bite your tongue. No need for you to make any joy from my pain.” She slapped him lightly across the arm, just enough to sting and let him know she meant business. A warning shot letting her say they weren’t playing together, she was playing with him. He let her know he got it by letting her light the match that burned their faces up, tossing it into the rubbish bin and not looking back as they walked along the little street, out of town and back towards the car, where they buckled in and drove another hour to get to Kraków. Not the city itself, mind; one of the little outlying outer boroughs, someplace near enough to the local nexus of civilization to be guaranteed hot running water and a decent cup of whatever you cared to drink at the hotel bar before turning in for the day. Even this far out, it caught him to realize how comfortable he’d gotten at being apart from living beings all crammed in together.

He and Dru were city people. Pavement under their feet, streetlights taken for granted. Well-traveled enough to not take indoor plumbing for granted, always happy to be used to it. He’d grown up in London when it’d been the pulsing, beating heart of an empire, and next to that, only two or three places came close to comparing, depending on how he counted them. Kraków wasn’t such a place, and one of its outlying areas, _especially_ not. But it calmed him some, and Dru as well, to be back within their native environment. In the hotel, Spike played up his accent at the front desk and got them a view of buildings for their trouble. They sat on the floor and looked out at the windows across and along the street, some blinking on and off and some shining steady, marveling at the near-forgotten feeling of being surrounded by people until morning came and they had to pull the curtains closed.

“They all think themselves happy,” Dru said, curled up on her own bed. “They’re wrong to think so. They’ve each of them got faulty gears, grinding together, working their teeth together until they snap off, but that won’t make the running go smoother, no it won’t. Should’ve made sure it all fit together first, before even trying.”

“Should’ve read the instructions more closely,” Spike said, before getting under the covers. God, _getting under the covers._ What luxury. He rubbed his feet together, luxuriating in the feeling of fabric soft against his skin, trying to blot out the low-hanging storm clouds in his head.

He woke up around four to the sounds of a familiar voice that nearly caused one of those clouds to let loose a torrent of rain, before he got it all back under control.

“She’d crackled,” Dru said. “Only saw her the once and could hardly hear her over the Judge, but she’d _crackled,_ enough there I could tell. Would’ve liked to see her again. A shame. How’s she doing, do you know?”

Spike threw off the covers to be confronted with Willow’s face.

She was sitting politely with her back straight and shoulders back, her long red hair pulled into a bun that meant business, sleek clothes someone else would’ve had to have picked out for her, and a fierce look in her eyes that he’d seen slowly bloom over the last ten years and was now in full maturity. It took him a moment to get over the shock of it and pay attention to what Willow was saying. Ongoing developments in magical education, working with particle physicists and meteorologists for cross-discipline advancements, and he nearly put his fist through the screen because how dare they waste her time like this, how dare they ask her these bits of paltry, two-a-penny bum fodder when there was so much better she ought to be asked and so much more she ought to be saying.

Willow answered every question politely, courteously, and pleasantly. She didn’t smile too much and let herself giggle a few times. She gave as thorough a set of responses as she could, and it wasn’t until she got to a question she couldn’t fully commit to, hedging it with the _as much as I can share at this moment_ disclaimer, the _we’re working on that with full resources_ non-answer, the flick in her eyes and the shift in her posture, that Willow finally gave Spike what he’d wanted to hear.

Someone admitting _something is wrong and we’re trying to fix it._

Of course she couldn’t say much about that, so sorry about that, of course it’s important we’re focusing on Slayer training and resource management, it’s important for the empowered young women of tomorrow to know they’re not alone in the world, naturally we’re working with all local governments and NGOs and nonprofits and libraries and preschools and doing what we can to make sure all transitions are smooth and everyone’s accounted for and not a single word about the mess and trouble they were getting into. Necessary trouble, of course, a _new_ kind of trouble that needed doing, trouble what couldn’t be talked about yet until they were all done with it.

Listening to what she wasn’t saying: _things are going down the drain and we’re trying to stop it before it’s too late._

Dru’s eyes flicked to his, and shut off the telly.

That night, he and Dru tested the waters, stepping carefully and keeping their eyes open. The night after that, Spike went out by himself to find a not-so-little tavern. Something a hair bigger than what they had out in the boonies. A _hare_ bigger, even, depending on the clients they served. It took him a little while – they loved their churches here – but he found it, near midnight, and the night after _that_ ¸ already restless and trying not to glance over his shoulder every waking moment, he sidled in carefully. Nobody turned to look at him as he made his way to the bar and settled down, waving at the bartender with a little cheeky grin.

“You speak English?” he asked.

“Is that what you expect from me?” she answered. Tough, no-nonsense, solid farmgirl muscle with smooth dark eyes, light hair pulled into a business braid, there was a faint tang to her that told him at least half her parentage wasn’t as human as she looked to be.

“Fair enough. So what’s good here? What’s it you recommend for someone long on their feet and ready for something to warm them from the inside out?”

She considered him. “That all depends on how much that someone’s ready to pay. Not much money, there’s a couple shots that’d put him to bed nice and pretty. A little more spending cash, maybe a good bottle of something lighter that’ll still take him off his feet in all due time.”

Spike kept up his smile. “He’s happy to start a tab he’ll pay in full at last call.”

“Then I’d say let him drink whatever the fuck he wants and be happy while doing it.” He handed her a tourist’s credit card, which she took, nodding appreciatively. “This is the house specialty.” She pulled out an unlabeled bottle of mead. “We brew it ourselves in the back.” She poured him a shot of sunshine-bright liquid that slid down easy, burning the whole way, sticky as old blood and half as pungent. It was a mead with a bourbon’s kick; no wonder she served it in such small amounts. She made a curious sound as he slammed the empty glass onto the bar and poured him another, then another, that he knocked back just as fast as the first. 

“I can keep this up all night,” he told her.

“I bet you say that to all the pretty girls,” she replied, and poured him another shot that disappeared right away. “So what brings you out here?”

“Unfortunate circumstances. Thought I’d find some direction in a bar.”

“Giving people direction is more than half my business. May I ask where you’re looking to go?”

“More who I’m trying to avoid.”

“A who, is it.” Another shot poured, another shot gone. “If you’re after that sort of direction, I’ve got plenty to offer.”

“Not just a who.” She filled his glass and he emptied it out, then set it back down on the bar. She narrowed her eyes. “A small, select group. Very persistent. Very dedicated towards finding yours truly.”

She narrowed her eyes, flared her nostrils, and let out a mighty _harrumph_ sound, then shouted in Polish. All movement stopped and all sounds ceased, everyone’s eyes turning towards the two of them. She shouted again, more words that Spike assumed were to the effect of _end of the night, everybody out, no last call, anyone I catch dawdling’s not coming back in tomorrow._ They all followed her directions, emptying out, as he continued to lean against the bar and she continued to stare at him, her tang going from sweet to sour. She shouted again, one last time, and the door locked itself behind the last person out, leaving the two of them alone.

“Aren’t you a sight,” she rumbled. “First vampire I’ve seen in months. Brave of you to show your face in a place like this.”

“Place run by a mongrel?” he baited.

“Place so close to a city,” she answered, not taking it and rising several points in his estimation. “I don’t just mean the first vampire I’ve seen in months at my bar, I mean the first one at all. Any evening, anywhere around here. They’ve been doing good work against you and yours. Honestly, at first glance, I’d thought, let them have at the whole entire body of you corpses. What’s the skin off my nose? A few lost Euros, I can make that up with demon customers now that they’re not afraid to drink here. At first glance. Then I think, good as it was to walk out in public without any shame or fear, grand as it is to be safe to be what I am, what went into making all of you disappear like that?” She poured herself a shot and knocked it back. “I wouldn’t mourn to see you all disappear in a great puff of smoke and ash, but that they’re going after you, one by one, that doesn’t sit well in my head or either of my hearts.”

She clicked her tongue. “And that the first one I see in all this time is _you._ Of all of them.” She smiled, all smooth human teeth. “A year ago, I’d have asked for a picture to hang on the wall. Spike. Of all the vampires in all the world, drinking my mead, at my bar, easily the most famous person to ever walk through those doors. Next to you, they’re hardly worth the breath to mention.”

“Year ago, I’d’ve been happy to give it to you. Let everyone nab a picture.” He knocked his own shot back. “Now I’m worried, have I got to kill you, rob the world of this lovely mead, if you’ve shouted to someone to make a call to the local Council chapter, give me a few seconds’ head start.”

“That’s guessing they haven’t called them already.”

“That’s _telling_ me they haven’t.”

“I saw no reason to ask that such a deed be done.” Two more shots were poured, the bottle emptied. “Be a shame to say they caught you here. Not the kind of fame I’d like, if I’m looking to keep the same people coming back. Steady customers are the key to a good, long business for any decent tavern.” Spike smiled, raised his glass in salute, and emptied it out. She filled it right back up. “Impressive to see you still out there, somewhere. What with all the work they’re doing to find you.”

“Impressive?” He drew up. “It’s business as usual to see me out there, dancing through the streets every night, racing the sunrise home and never looking back. The day they catch me is the day I deserve to be dusted. I was sired by Drusilla herself, raised up to wreak havoc across the earth by Darla and Angelus. I’ve closed a Hellmouth and survived more apocalypses than most gods would dream of causing. I’ve loved one Slayer and killed five more and survived all these months with my face on the news and money on my head for my safe capture. Take that picture. Post it up by the door. I came through here and walked out when they were hot on my trail, no better way to sell a drink than to say that about this little place.”

“I just might,” she said, a low, cackling laugh at the edges of her voice. “And all that said, what do you want from me?”

“I want to know how bad it is out there for vampires,” he told her. “I want to know if it’s as bad as I think it is. I want to know where they’re looking for me and what they’re doing. I want a fresh bottle of your mead and another one just like it right after. And I want to know your name.”

“Agnieszka.”

“Well, Agnieszka, how about you begin with that bottle and work from there?”

She handed it to him, and he set it to his lips, tilting his head back and drinking down every drop of that sweet, sticky sunshine. Once he was done, he set it on the bar, and she pulled out another – but didn’t yet hand it to him.

“It’s worse than you think,” she said.

Most anyone who might’ve been swayed by his name had long since had the fear of the Slayers Council thrown into their hearts, beating or otherwise, however many of them they had. There wasn’t any playing it to gain entrance into demon circles, and not Drusilla’s, either, though he didn’t breathe a word of her presence to Agnieszka. Any demon circle, club, or network currently standing would try turning him in to the nearest pack of Slayers to try to garner some favor with the Council the moment they realized who he was.

He’d _been_ part of a calamity, the Scourge of Europe, the Whirlwind; he knew what it meant for fear to come in his stead and death to trail in his wake. He’d done it for the joy it’d brought him. The Council was doing it out of a twisted sense of honor and reason and trying to craft the world into serving them up a modern crusade. They’d changed it from a battle into a war, and hadn’t even bothered to declare it so that the other side could fight back properly.

Which was how he’d do it, if he wanted to give it a go. Didn’t make it sit any more comfortably inside his head.

“It’s one of the oldest stories people tell,” she said. “Humans, demons, vampires. There’s hardly anyone who wouldn’t turn on a vampire if they had the chance. _Hardly_ anyone, thank you. I know you’d just as soon kill me as blink when I’m done talking to you, hence the long-windedness, so if you please, some promise you won’t eat me as soon as I’ve stopped would be nice, that or you’ll make it quick as thanks for all I’ve done for you tonight. Don’t swear on your sire or your grave or the crosses you can’t touch anymore, I’ve heard enough of those empty promises to last me a good long while.”

He nodded. “How’s about I swear to you on my soul I leave you alive tonight, as thanks for the information and in gratitude for the drinks?”

“Now _that_ I’ll accept.” She picked up the credit card. “This thing even real?”

“Real enough. Picked it up off some French tourists a few days back and bought some beer with it the next day. Hasn’t been cancelled yet, but that’s only a matter of time.” He pulled out his wallet – well, someone’s wallet that was his now – and counted out three hundred fifty Euros in assorted small bills, then slid the stack across the counter. “This here’s the real stuff, though, if you want some recompense for having to scare out all your customers tonight.”

“I’d say this is fair.” She deposited it all into the till of a grand old-fashioned cash register, gifting him with a terrific ding and a wonderful bang that he barely heard anymore. Seeing the world change was easy enough, you looked around and there it was, but _hearing_ the forgotten noises of the world was a different piece of business. “If you’ll allow me to take that picture.” He did, and several more, posing beside her and tossing out faces and hand gestures, joking around and making her laugh for the joy of the sound. Always a good night, to have made a woman laugh.

She wiped the security feeds in her office, switched the cameras off to be sure, and let him out through the back door, her fare-thee-well including a word of warning he’d best be out of town by tomorrow night at the latest, what with all the witnesses there’d been at the bar. It wasn’t running away; it was a strategic set of maneuvers based on an inhospitable situation. He nicked another car, and it was ten days later he and Dru dared to try for the border. Crossing wasn’t the problem: ditch the car and go on foot, the way it was supposed to be done. The trouble was finding a spot to ditch the car where they could cross and then pick up another one, fast.

They found a decent one right near the border in what hardly counted as a city even compared to the outskirts of Kraków. A town, maybe. He’d allow it to be called a town. There were advertisements plastered and painted on the sides of buildings, and you couldn’t get those without a bare enough number of people to sell things to.

Enough people to sell things to was enough people to hide inside and play the part of aimless tourists to get directions to a decent hotel. Enough people to hide inside ran risk of someone in the crowd being someone in the know. They took the chance and got rewarded for their gamble by being able to sleep indoors.

It was a town big enough to have a decent night life, young people out drinking because it was that or fucking to pass the time, and they might as well get drunk before they fucked. A rich historic tradition, that, which allowed him and Dru enough of a cover story to head out together, hand in hand, and get a sense of current events from the ground view. Corroborate the rumors and use mutually contradictory ones to triangulate the truth. Try not to hear shrieking violins when he caught sight of a certain kind of blonde hair. Dru played at sipping at her liquor and he made a show of enjoying his lemonade and it was like that joyful stint in Berlin, back between the wars, one of those times when hunting had been more about fun than it’d been about food.

But no eating tonight. The cow they’d had three nights ago – leaving it wobbly on its hooves, risking it to stay well-fed a while longer than usual – still doing enough to make it easy to focus on the information they were getting out of the girl’s mouth and not the pulsing of her throat. Laughing, playing along, getting her and her boy to keep talking, local kids that hadn’t traveled more than a few kilometers from where they were born who said things were so much nicer now than they were in their parents’ day but how hard life still was for them, how much easier it was with the Slayers doing their work, how they’d swept through here some weeks ago and how they’d encouraged all the women of every age to follow along after them as they tore open every little hiding-hole, ripped every cellar door off its hinges, left nothing but ash trailing in the breeze as they came and went fast and merciless as a summer thunderstorm.

“That sounds terrific,” Drusilla breathed, and Spike knew she meant it to mean _to beget terror._

“It was!” The girl laughed. “They said they were sent by the Council but they didn’t have any papers or anything to show to the mayor, but he let them do the work anyway, they made it sound so important, they had a meeting before they started working and – you wouldn’t believe what they said, when they were done.”

“I might not,” Spike said. “What did they say?”

“They said the vampires, oh man,” she took a long gulp of her drink, “they said they _bowed_ to them before they died.”

“Bowed,” Dru said carefully.

“Oh, yeah! Bowed. On their knees and _everything_. They bowed down and then they got staked, they didn’t know why, but they said they’d seen it before, too. Like, in the last town they were in, the vampires there bowed too. Except they said, they’d killed all _those_ vampires, so it wasn’t like anyone from the first town told the ones here. Unless they missed one, which they knew they hadn’t, so who knows how they knew?” She finished off her drink and signaled to the waitress and ordered another. “They said, they’d get some Watchers on it, but I don’t know what that really means, so I figure, good for them for getting rid of as many as they could find anyway.”

“Good for them,” Spike echoed, forcing his voice light and high to hide the disgust he felt deep in his soul. Doing in a vampire who’d done enough to deserve a dusting was one thing, but to dust even those who’d chosen to do good – denying them any chance at making that choice come another day, making that choice every day – he’d made his thoughts on that matter clear enough, back in the forest.

Picking the club’s pockets made for something of a diversion and a fair way to indulge enough of the instincts without drawing too much of the wrong sort of attention. Still hunting, still with the stalking and the striking, only without any death at the end. It netted them enough dosh to keep the hotel room a while longer, too, and a couple nights later at the town’s only other club, an invite to a party that got them double their ready cash on hand, a couple changes of clothes, and a nice German import car that the local kids had no reason to be driving whatsoever. Better to give it to someone who could properly care for such a machine.

They only drove it two nights, but they tripled the number on its odometer heading to where the Slayers had already been. Maybe they wouldn’t loop back just yet, maybe the back-up squads wouldn’t notice two vamps on the run.

Not a squad, at least. Hardly a battalion. Just a gang, really. Young women who’d jumped at the chance to leave their mundane lives behind and dedicate themselves to the grand and beautiful stories they were promised when they were little girls. They were doing their best, which was quite good, as bests went, but they’d only been Slayers for six years. That wasn’t _most of their lives_ the way it’d been with Buffy, with Nikki Wood, with Xin Rong, and the five of them at least knew enough to count themselves lucky Spike wasn’t looking for another good day.

It’d been his fault, really. He never could stay well enough away. He’d heard someone mention a demon bar, a rare thing in these parts, and he’d thought it’d be a nice place to sit quietly a few hours while he and Dru could _pretend_ they were fine. She hadn’t protested the idea and he’d taken that as full permission to let their worries fall slack for a bit. Not to relax them completely. Just ease up on things for the time it took to sip a couple drinks nice and slow, maybe a little bit of gentle dancing, then right back to the hotel and they’d be off again tomorrow night. Like one of so many nights out in the countryside, watching fireflies and owls and Dru happily listening to the stars.

The bar was quieter than he’d thought it’d be, with more humans than he was used to seeing in a place that had fried mice on its menu. But the cocktails were strong, for what they were, the beer list decently sized, and the lighting favorably dim.

“They know it’s not their place,” Dru whispered, pointing at a group of humans sitting across the way. “They’re having a game of things, filling up the empty spaces and breaking them apart. They’re taking their fun in not seeing why it’s allowed to them, tonight and all these other nights, else it’d break apart before their very eyes. Can’t admit to what they’re seeing.”

“What human can?” he whispered back and leaned against the wall of their little booth. He’d filched someone’s cigarettes and someone else’s lighter soon as they’d walked in and lit one up and watched the smoke drift upwards towards a ceiling. Between the sight of the smoke and the sounds and smells of the bar, he almost felt like he was back in the mother country again. He puffed away happily, letting the chemicals zip through his system as he briefly considered risking the chance to be disappointed over what the place considered spicy.

He was halfway through his third cigarette of the night and Dru was finishing up her second drink when she gasped.

“A legion,” she whispered, eyes looking somewhere far beyond the ceiling. “Cutting up the nights, pushed along by what they are, what they wish to be, forgetting themselves in the promises. Trying so hard to believe themselves better than what they left behind. No difference to them, believing it even when it hadn’t come from the great generalissima herself.”

“Here? Tonight?” Dru nodded.

“Desperate. Unhappy. All too ready to lie to themselves of what’s required to the world.”

“And they can feel us,” he whispered. She nodded again. “We’ll do a turnaround. Like out of Monaco.”

Dru clenched her hand around his under the table as the five of them walked into the bar and the place went quiet. Not the quiet in between songs or the quiet of the crowd clearing out at the end of the night. The quiet of everyone shutting it up because whoever walked in demanded every ounce of their attention.

He squeezed back, gently, as the girls ordered their drinks and Dru slipped away.

Bright young things traveling together in a close-knit pack, earning the moniker for how they carried themselves: striding in like they owned the place, as goddesses across the world, knowing full well they had all the glory and the power and the rest of the planet better get with the program fast. They held their heads up proud and their shoulders back and their bodies as weapons, and the crowd parted for them, stepping aside to let them through, nobody even thinking of _breathing_ in their direction lest they disturb a single precious hair on their heads.

There wasn’t a chance they hadn’t picked up the vibes the two of them gave off by virtue of being vampires. No reason to think they wouldn’t be followed, if they tried slipping out, much less they’d not be noticed slipping away in all the quiet. There wasn’t enough fantasy in his soul to think they _might_ not have spotted them, that they _might_ not be good enough Slayers to think nothing of it, that they _might_ not follow if he and Dru left that very second.

But there was just enough they _might_ put all their attention on him.

“Well, look what we’ve got here, ladies,” the oldest girl said. She couldn’t be more than thirty if she was a day. “Looks like we missed one.”

Spike took a long, thorough drag, and blew the smoke out through his nostrils. “Not for lack of trying, from what I hear.”

“Oh, you’re going to be a fun one, I can tell. Got some fight in you,” she said, rolling her shoulders as the rest of her gang strode up behind, and all Spike could think was they’d left their drinks at the bar, hadn’t even paid for them. They’d barely touched those drinks, and they were leaving them at the bar. “It’s no fun if there’s no fighting.”

“And it’s all about the fun of it for you lot these days, is it?” He shook his head and smiled. “Now in _my_ day, a Slayer knew her duty. She knew what was needed of her, and fun wasn’t on the list.”

“Times change,” another girl piped up from the back. “We like our work. We even enjoy it sometimes.”

“Bully for you, then.” He clicked his tongue. “Though I gotta say, calling it _work_ – you’re making it sound like a nine-to-five, like a job anyone can get hired for. Tell me, what’s the beginner’s requirements for field work these days? You lot put in enough hours to make the minimum, or they just getting desperate?”

“Enough. You get on your knees, we’ll make it fast,” the leader hissed, clearly at a loss for what to do when a vampire didn’t cower.

“Not much reason to be quiet, then, is it?” Spike grinned, putting out his smoke in his empty glass.

“Hang on, do I know you?” The leader peered at him, trying to fix his face to a memory, and he knew if he still had all his hair, he wouldn’t even have this much time to assay the five of them.

“Only by reputation, love,” he purred. “Though if you’re really after the great lady’s favor, call her up and tell her who you’ll be dancing with tonight.” 

He saw the very moment face and voice and name caught up in her mind, and just as the Slayer’s eyes went wide, he threw the glass at her and kicked over the table.

Kicked over the table, with the glass nearly hitting the Slayer in the back who dodged away. That being the opening he needed as the five girls shouted in surprise and the crowd roared as he smashed a chair and grabbed the broken legs as two makeshift coshes. The girls flinched and tried to look brave, suddenly uncertain what to do when someone put up a fight.

“Gotta say, nice of the Council to send you lot out,” he baited, pointing and gesturing with a cosh. “Enough of you here I’ll double my total all in one go.”

“Shut it!” A girl pulled out her stake. “You’re ending tonight in a vacuum cleaner!”

“Not bad,” Spike allowed. “Good points for technique, but might think a little harder on delivery.” He could see their eyes, now, as they bore in closer to him, as he circled around and the crowd backed away, lining the walls and not sure which side to root for. These girls hoped for battle the way they lived for being Slayers. Another roar from the crowd, another crash of worry through their faces, and he kept on smiling. “Now, which one of you’s ready to die first?”

Their leader shouted and leapt forward. Spike didn’t flinch. Not even when she came at him, not even when he let himself dodge _just enough_ her stake went into his shoulder, not his heart, and he could slam a cosh down against her knee and turn it a way no human knee ever meant to turn with a sound that hit his ear with solid dark joy. Couldn’t dwell on it as the other two rushed forward, couldn’t linger as he had to move and hiss against the pain of the stake against his muscles and shortening his reach, find the opening to the soft spots and hit them hard enough to tell them _don’t get back up_.

No finesse in their strategy. No strategy at all, really. Hunt, fight, kill. No calls for backup, no flanking them from the back, just a dizzyingly straightforward rush to see that they could prove themselves the grand Slayers they dreamed of being.

Spike wasn’t concerned with proving anything. He grabbed one of them and used her as a human shield against a friend who hesitated long enough for him to hurl his shield away for her to hit the wall and high-kick a stake thrown through the air and spiral to grab the ankle of another to toss at the first girl who was back up and wobbling, then turn about to slam his fist into the second one’s throat, knocking her down. The fourth couldn’t parse out how to hurt a friend to take out an enemy and left herself wide open to a kick to the kidneys and a knee to the liver from behind. The last one didn’t scream as he snapped her ribs, passing out from the pain.

Internal bleeding. Lots of bruises. Broken bones and concussions that’d be gone by the day after tomorrow.

Those three girls had fought harder not to die out in those woods than these five ladies fought to prove themselves tonight. Fighting to prove yourself was all well and good.

But Spike hadn’t fought to prove anything. He’d fought to _win._

He looked around the wrecked room, the demons and humans cowering in their booths, in the corners, the funk of fear heavy in the room overpowering everything else that he could possibly smell. For the show of it, he went to the bar. Looked around to make sure everyone’s eyes were on him. Finished their drinks. Pulled out a hundred-euro bill and set it on the counter. “For the tab,” he said, living up to the legend he knew they’d be printing. “Charge the rest of it to the Council, they’ll be happy to pay. And now, I think, I’ll take my leave.”

On his way out, he looked down, and kicked one Slayer in the stomach, making her curl up and whimper, for good measure.

He strode through the bar. He threw the door open and walked into the night. He took off running like the hounds of all the hells were after him just as Dru pulled the getaway car around the corner, stopping and reversing so he could jump inside the front seat and she sped away.

They changed cars not two hours later, broke into a hardware store to make off with some spray-paint just before dawn, and kept tearing through the countryside, not stopping until they had two international borders in between them and that poor little town what probably hadn’t seen such excitement since the last time a man walked on the moon.

Both he and Dru would’ve liked to linger in Austria, but as she told him, scenery flashing past the gaps in the paint, they’d already seen it before.

It was a sizeable drive through the country, and they kept checking the radio for news – the cadence easy enough to recognize, even if the words themselves were mostly lost on them. No mention of them, though. No mention of a certain international para-military non-government organization whose name was known the world over, like Jesus Christ or Superman.

He took Dru’s directions for where to turn and which roads to follow. They stopped at a little town in Liechtenstein just over the river from Switzerland that could’ve passed for Poland or Germany or any number of countries in the right light for all the distinguishing features it had to offer. But since those non-distinguishing features included a cheap hotel with showers and heavy curtains, and a few days’ worth of newspapers at check-in that the clerk didn’t mind them taking on back with them, it’d do. He and Dru sat on the floor and scoured the pages in all the languages the two of them could read, but there was nothing. On the telly, no mention of anything.

“They’re keeping it secret,” he said quietly. “It’s what I’d do, if I were them. Wouldn’t say who exactly I’d just fought, just say, a couple of vamps, a few Slayers, don’t make it too big and let my work keep on going.”

“Divide up the attention,” Dru said. “Move gently. A lawyer’s move. Forgetting what it meant when he washed his hands clean.”

“Out, damned spot, out I say,” Spike said, and Dru giggled, leaning back against the foot of the one bed. 

“One, two!” She counted off her fingers. “Why, then, ’tis time to do’t.”

“Hell is murky.” He mock-seriously pointed out.

“Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard?”

“What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?”

Dru pulled in a dramatic breath, setting the back of her hand against her forehead. “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”

“Any vamp you care to ask, for one.”

That got another giggle out of her, and she let herself flop over, leaning against his side. “Steaming and rich. I should’ve known to see them. Great pillars of starshine through all the fallen leaves. They’ve never known how to cloak themselves. I didn’t think –”

“It’s all right, Dru.” He pulled her close and ran a hand over her shoulder. “They were bound to catch up to us one day, let’s be glad both of us are still here.”

“Will be, for a long while yet,” she said softly. “No reason to worry there.”

“Then I won’t,” he told her, and turned the telly back on because there wasn’t anything else to do. Liechtenstein didn’t have a nightlife to speak of, even with summer finally coming to an end and the nights lasting long enough to be worth living in. A century ago, he and Dru wouldn’t have bothered with such a little speck of a place. Now, they hid for a week, leaving when hunger spurred them back to the countryside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a [stripped-down version of "Raising Hell"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOpSEvgcYBk) that, if you haven't heard it yet, is well worth a listen.


	3. every nation in the world slinks through the alley after girls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "City of the Dead" by The Clash.

The end of summer had its own fragile beauty to it – everything starting to hurry, life realizing it only had so much time left before winter and death began. Autumn was merely time to come to terms with it; summer’s ending the last moments of self-deception, the feeling that the world would stay warm forever. As the grasses dried and the leaves yellowed and the birds grew nearly frantic in their flight, Dru spun around under the stars as she felt the restless air spin around her. 

“Not even the sky can cry out its grief for all that’s lost beneath it,” she sighed, boots crunching the gravel of the Swiss road, “and all that it sees come to pass.”

Spike took her hands, guided her in a little set of dance steps. Fully fed for the first time in weeks, they were both ready to play a little. No audience but the stars overhead and the lightheaded sheep out in the pasture. “Must be pretty tired of seeing the same things come around every cycle. Think it wants something new? A year of autumns, maybe?”

“Worse, far worse. Leave the stage the same and let the players scatter as they will.” She swayed about, and he let himself be swayed along. “Not that they’re playing fair, these days. Everything melting, melting, melting,” she moaned out the words as he dipped her, “and the hours stay the same,” he pulled her back up and they kept dancing, “there’s no reasoning to it anymore. Can’t even guess more than an hour ahead.”

“Will we still have nighttime, far out as you can see?” He threw his head back as she slid along his arm. “If the stars are in trouble you let me know, I’ll climb up to the heavens and fight in their name, if it’ll make you happy.”

“Oh, yes, nights and days, for as long as the moon allows,” she said. “Nights and days and all manner of totalities, that’s not to be touched, that’s always to be true.”

“Long as we’ve got that going for the coming years,” Spike said, finishing off with a bow.

They risked two hours in a little internet café somewhere in western Germany. Blending in with the rest of the customers, from the pallor of his skin to sitting stock-still and staring at the screen for every moment of those two hours, would’ve been funny once upon a time. Now it soothed him enough he wasn’t jumping every time someone opened the door. Only a flinch he could keep under control.

The news about the Council was tight-lipped, dull and boring. New measures in place, putting theory into practice, stipends and salaries and pensions and maternity leave. Seeing to it all the little girls and older women were being taken good care of, told in all the excitement of a mortgage broker. How they wanted it, most likely. Put on a face like that, keep people from trying to guess what was really going on. Make like it’s nothing but tedious work, and not even busywork at that.

He had fifteen minutes left to his session and was thinking of using it to read up on his soaps when he finally found something. A radio interview from earlier that week from halfway around the world, Faith herself talking about how they were accepting new recruits, now that girls who hadn’t been summoned up that last day in Sunnydale were being Called all on their own. How they had to be protected, taken care of, made sure that the lessons they got about being Slayers were what they needed to hear, not just what they _wanted_ to be told. How hard it’d been for her, without anyone to guide her, how lonely she’d been.

_“It was just me. Then the two of us. When I heard about her…even though they’re all together in this, it’s hard to teach them not to work alone. The whole team-building thing. Team, not army. We’re having to learn how to do this, too. It’s new for all of us.”_

We, the two of us, her and I, a stutter in the unbroken line that’d been rumored to have happened a few times before, conjectured and unverified in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries and formally recorded midway through the eighteenth but always contested on the grounds that such a thing was impossible. But then, Slayers ate impossible for breakfast along with their Wheaties and orange juice.

_“Us. It’s not a word we use much. Or we. Using the plural’s usually reserved for the past tense, the whole, you know, the Star Trek assimilate thing – what is it, collective? The collective Slayers through history. Not the present. Not the Slayers here now. We used to come when the last one died. I think about her sometimes. Kendra, the one who came right before me. How I know she…Sorry. Anyway. Now that doesn’t happen anymore, and we need to figure out how to keep things going and change them when that was all anyone knew.”_

Faith’s voice shone through, even with the work done to smooth out her slang and missing consonants. Even discounting the surrounding circumstances, she sounded happier than when they’d last talked, nearly a year ago. Dating Groo – well, Ashaiduk ha’Samarg, now that he was going by his given name – was doing her well. 

Spike could imagine Faith’s cheeky grin, the way she’d toss her arms around and claim the space around her, whether or not it was there for her – she’d take it and make them glad to give it to her, or suffer the consequences if they weren’t so generous. He could picture her going quiet, occupying every square inch she’d grabbed to defend herself against all invasive forces and all internal conflicts, putting on a brave face and hope that pretending hard enough would make it real. He could bloody well hear her when she spoke of the other one, how it’d been the best and the worst thing together at once to be the Chosen One, and then the Chosen One of Two.

Then the screen blinked at him, reminding him he had five minutes to pay more or log off.

He chose to log off, and carefully retreat to the hostel. Less an issue with money; more a concern of blending in, finding new ways to hide, and the comfort in living bodies around. Until hunger prodded them along, they’d be around people who had no idea anything was wrong, who thought it was all working out fine, kids that had the whole world laid out for them to enjoy and wouldn’t spare a thought to yesterday, tomorrow, or the couple in the single down the hall.

Easy enough to get a few weeks’ pocket money cheating them at cards, or just playing fair for a change of pace. Easier to ask how things were going back where they’d come from, and how things were looking where they were going, when they were focusing on their money being taken – no thoughts given to the questions being asked.

Most of them hadn’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary. They seemed to figure, demons had their moment rising up, now they were all moving back to how things had been a few years ago, back to normal only now everyone was aware of what was on the other side of things. A few of them had noticed things going quiet, bit sad to see it go quiet after things had been so fun and loud a couple years there, but couldn’t think why.

There was one girl, whose tell of drawing a good card was a slight flinch and the tell of a bad hand was to let her rural Canadian accent flow a bit, who didn’t like how things were going.

“I’m not saying – I’m not saying, okay, here it is, here’s how things are now,” she took another long drink of stalwart German beer, “it’s that, we all know, shouldn’t we all be okay? We all know, we all find out the same time, we find out all the demons and bogeys are real same time we find out Slayers are real too, both sides get the bomb, Alabama’s got it too, so it should be more the same only now we can get – no, I mean, what I mean, if what we got’s a world that’s as big and wonderful as we thought it was when we were kids, trying to do magic in the backyard, why isn’t it really like that? Why’s it all quiet?” She took a short drink, washing her tongue clean. “I’m here to find out, I’m here to explore, and I hear there’s nothing happening, I know there’s gotta be _something,_ there’s gotta be something _right now,_ but I look and I ask and it’s not even in the guidebooks, it’s the people who’ve always known, and what they’re saying is it’s all gone quiet, which is utter bullshit, something _made_ it all go quiet just after we find out, just when the world got big. I’m saying something _happened_ and there’s nobody who’ll agree with me, there’s nobody saying nothing about it but I know, man, I _know.”_

“Yes,” Dru said gently, “it does sound awfully worrying when you put it all like that.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I know you don’t believe me, but it’s nice to hear you say it.”

“I know _you_ believe it.” Spike leaned forward from the couch, towards the girl curled up in an armchair. “Even if I haven’t seen what you have, be a sorry state of things if I said no straight out and what you’re saying can’t be true just because I haven’t seen it myself.”

Her eyes went wide just before she threw herself at him, arms around his neck and bawling out her thanks to him and Dru and everyone who could hear her at four in the morning. He gently pried her fingers off his skin. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“Room eight fifteen,” she sobbed. “Thank you.”

“What’s your name?” Dru asked her, throwing one of her arms over her shoulders.

“Martha,” she managed between deep, heaving hiccups, not noticing her feet didn’t touch the floor as they carried her up the stairs.

“Dear Martha.” Dru planted a kiss on her cheek. “You’ll see the world as you wish to, again.”

“Promise?”

“She wouldn’t say it if she didn’t mean it,” Spike told her, maneuvering past another drunken college girl, this one dozing in the landing. “Just be patient, Martha. You’ll see it come around again.”

“Moons and tides,” Dru said, but Martha was now far enough in her cups to not much care.

“Thank you.” She staggered into her room, then turned around and hugged both of them again. “God, I love you two so much. Thank you. Thank you.” She turned around, walked two steps, and fell face-first into her bed, asleep as soon as her cheek hit the pillow.

The two of them looked at Martha sleeping there, looked at each other, then back to Martha.

“Be easy,” Dru said.

“No fun in easy,” Spike told her.

“Fun in not being hungry.”

“We’ll head out tomorrow night and find some homeless man we can eat and not draw attention to where we’re sleeping. Remember what Mummy and Daddy taught us?”

Dru clicked her tongue at him and hissed, annoyed but accepting the point he made with calling them by their old nicknames. “There’s ways for how to get the right sort of attention, and how to get none at all.” That, at least, was true enough: eat off her in the right spots gently enough not to wake her, not to be readily found on waking, drain her so carefully and arrange her just so that no one in the hostel would pay any notice she was dead until the two of them were long gone. They way they’d used to grab an easy meal. But no attention was their goal that night, taking the stairs back down to their floor and dozing through the morning, spending the afternoon with a cheap Raymond Carver paperback from the common area to distract from being hungry.

They never found their homeless man. Instead, two nights later, a couple of Americans gave them a ride to Bonn. Spike would happily say this for Americans: tell then you had to get somewhere before dawn, they’d drive all night and not bat an eyelash at the request. The two men dropped them off somewhere at random, which was fine. They’d only ever passed through Bonn all other times they’d been through this part of the continent, and a city without memories was oftentimes a balm when trying to outrun something. Nothing to look back on gave you reason to keep going forward.

He’d heard tales of demon life here being particularly vibrant, before the first war and after the second. No sign of it now. There were a few demons scuttling around, scurrying from one shadow to another, but nothing solid, nothing real. He’d been to cities like this before – ones where all the demons and every manner of beasties and bloodsuckers kept to themselves, didn’t make trouble, didn’t draw any attention. But not a city where demons had been living so well-connected to the human world, not even in Sunnydale. Not a city where everything was _gone._

“Little children,” she sobbed. “Always little children having to run, always being taken and never knowing _why.”_ Her head fell forward and she fell down to the floor, and Spike brushed his hands over her cheeks, cupping her face and holding her in the world. She rocked and cried while he held her tightly in an old, empty dance hall. “They’d had years of promise and all the words for singing but the music’s changed and the vines came up and they’ve been pulled back under, trapped in the leaves and no songs now, no songs here again, all the echoes so long gone.”

“There’ll be other places for singing someday, pet,” he promised. “Maybe not right here, maybe not this place again, but there’s always going to be singing.” He wiped away her tears. “You’ll find a place, I’m sure of it.”

“Lonely places. Empty places.” She kept crying. “Not even a moldering body left behind, even the shadows wiped off the walls.” She tilted her head back, eyes still closed and weeping. She never knew where or when she was when she got her moments like this, and all Spike could do was wait for her to come back. “All lost in the light, the beautiful light, burning everything away but the songs.”

He pulled her close. “You see it?”

“I see it,” she whispered.

“Then you’ll get there. In your time. You’ll find your way to the singing again.”

She opened her eyes slowly. “You promise?”

“Don’t need to. Not if you’ve seen it. There’s no need to promise you something like this floor,” he rapped his knuckles against it, echoing in the dark emptiness, “not when we’re sitting right on it. Just like that, I’ve got no need to promise you that you’ll find what you’ve seen.”

Dru looked at him curiously. “Heard,” she said.

“Sorry?”

“Heard. Not seen. Singing, you silly. You _hear_ singing.”

“I’ll give you that.” He stood and offered her a hand, pulling her to her feet. “I still won’t promise it to you, though, no matter how you’re getting it inside your head. Seeing, hearing, smelling…” She wrinkled her nose and then smiled. “Come on. Let’s get back to the hotel before morning.”

By the time they left Bonn, the nights were getting long enough they could cover a fair bit of distance by rail without having to resort to luggage compartments. Slipping on without paying was the same all through the centuries, whether you got your ticket from a window or machine. Got themselves a first-class compartment, too.

He leaned his head against the window as the world slid by, Dru doing the same on the other side of the little table. Thinking of what Darla would have to say about what counted as first class on trains nowadays made him snort out a laugh. These trains were hardly more luxurious than subway cars, just another vehicle to sit in that’d get you from one point on the earth to another. The remnants of the glamour they’d once had was only noticeable around the very edges of the stations, built in another era when leaving the place where you’d grown up happened so rarely as to deserve such grandiosity, and traveling for the pleasure of the trip reserved for those with sufficient means as to have to design everything to their expectations of what was worth their time and money.

Spike looked away from the trees to Dru, her legs curled up underneath her on the seat and her face blank, then back outside. He’d been on trains with humans at night before, humans he’d known well enough to have conversations with, and he got up onto his knees like he’d done when he’d been a living child, and cupped his hands around his face to cut out the glare so he could see better.

It got her laughing, and he joined her on the other side of the table, the both of them facing the direction the train was going. She copied his hands against the window, and laughed again. “Can’t hardly see for all the light,” she said. “Can’t make out the world around me. I’ve got to make it dark, poor human me, my face all reflecting and ruining the view.” Another giggle, and she leaned back against the seat, looking right into his eyes. “Shame they can’t manage like us.”

“I’ll agree with you on that one, love,” he said, raising the armrest to lay his head on her shoulder. “Got its benefits, sometimes, you know where to look.”

“What _not_ to see,” she said smartly, stroking a hand over his scalp, tracing the lines of his skull. Her hand stilled, and she hummed. He twisted around to look at her; she had a curious, almost pleased look on her face. “Not too much longer before the brambles catch again,” she explained, holding her fingers a scant space apart.

Spike rubbed his hand over his head beside hers. Really paying _attention_ to what he was feeling instead of just repeating the habitual gesture often enough the daily changes didn’t register – there was enough to feel beneath his palm, somewhere between Sinead O’Connor and Henry Rollins.

“Yours’ll be back soon enough,” he said. “We’ve both got this much more,” he held his fingers as close together as hers had been. “It’s just easier to see it from nothing, instead of this,” and he held his hands apart to show her length.

“Don’t play to appease,” she said, looking out the window but resuming her stroking. “I’m in no mood for games tonight.”

The Low Countries had always been a place to pass through on the way to somewhere more interesting. Maybe spend a few nights at most if they wanted to cool their heels a bit. Too flat, too staid, too dull, too quiet. Right about now, ideal.

Antwerp hadn’t changed that much since he and Dru had seen it last, back in the early twenties. Nothing much to recommend it back then, not compared to what else was so close, but tonight, disembarking the train in the early morning darkness, the idea that it could be so boring as to be overlooked was the paradoxical appeal of the place.

Finding a cheap place to stay wasn’t a fuss; finding someone they wanted for a very particular errand took a bit of doing. A little prowling, some careful stalking – a city like New York, not just in its heyday but _any_ day, wouldn’t even take them five minutes. London, maybe ten at most. Antwerp took nearly thirty, an eternity in comparison.

“Half now, half tomorrow night with delivery.”

The woman nodded her head, her matted hair almost slapping her cheeks. “We’ll do it here?”

“Dead drop. See that bench?” Spike pointed, and she nodded again. “You leave it there, plain paper bag, she comes along after and takes it with her, I find you after an’ give you the rest.”

“And we do this again, if it works.”

“If it works, we’ll see about that.”

Half a century ago, the thought of working with a human for such an errand as this would’ve put him off his appetite, would’ve had him running somewhere much more interesting, would’ve just had him eat her to not be so hungry anymore. It was tempting, even now: she wasn’t a few hot meals and a safe bed away from turning her life around. On some level, better to put her out of her misery quietly enough, nearly painlessly, before the world ate her instead of him and Dru. The world wouldn’t bother being kind about killing her. Fifty years ago, he’d have made a point of making it quick and clean. Maybe not _painless_ , back then, but quick and clean. As to get the most nourishment from her corpse.

No sense in wasting a single drop if he and Dru were hungry enough to send a homeless woman out to a local butcher for blood delivery.

But deliver she did, and the money was pressed into her hands, and he and Dru took the bags to the hotel, eating in the bathroom, drinking the pigs’ blood slowly, hoovering up every bit from the polyethylene. Like Dawn with ice cream, they ripped the bags open and licked the insides, getting every last drop they could. Spike saw a tiny bit dribbled on the floor; he wiped his finger against the hard ceramic and licked it clean.

“Better,” Dru said, with a tone she was only admitting it under protest.

“Glad you think so,” Spike muttered, hauling himself to his feet. Though, honestly, they hadn’t eaten quite so well since leaving proper countryside. They’d do well to head back somewhere farther north, with winter on its way. Long nights, sleepy cows, how his standards had fallen.

Dru curled up on top of her bed’s covers. “It’s all missing,” she sang. “All the swords and all the shadows, I’ll forget how to see it along the proper lines and in the proper shapes if I let it go too long. I know I will. Most likely already left it – too long since I practiced. But I can’t waste my tears on what I let myself lose, not when I let it happen to myself.”

“Can you still read it in the stars?” Spike asked from his own bed, no idea what she was on about, happy to hear her speak.

“Such a different matter, dear boy,” she said, miffed. “I couldn’t bear to guess how you’d forget that.”

“You’re right. My apologies. Please forgive my ignorance, dear lady, allow me to beseech you and be granted a gift of your pardon.”

“No need to plea.” She stretched out, laying her hands beneath her cheek. “My dead and darling boy’s never fallen far from favor.”

“Glad to hear it,” he replied.

They managed a second such meal four nights later – new errand boy, a different butcher shop, cutting down the risks of them being recognized and the blood purchases being tracked, and the local Council office notified. Not willing to risk a third, but wanting to be as full as possible before heading out of Antwerp on the sort of vehicle Spike fervently hoped nobody thought him willing to stoop to using.

At least Dru enjoyed the ride.

He remembered the two of them learning how to ride a bicycle – velocipedes, back then, a welcome distraction from Darla’s gnashing and wailing about Angelus being gone and a way to keep Dru occupied with something in the world and not get lost inside her head. Bicycle, now, and an ideal way to slip out of Antwerp under everyone’s noses. They weren’t looking for two people on bikes. Nobody was paying attention to a couple of riders out along the backroads heading up north. In the high moonlight, city streets slowly faded out to country lanes, a flat little country full of small little houses, even the city gone after just a few minutes. If they’d gone with a car, they’d be on what passed for a highway, enjoying the sounds and smells of internal combustion engines. It was fields for them again, cultivated crops instead of grazing land or wild grasses, farmhouses jutting up against the sky and barely time to catch a glimpse of them before riding on past.

Dru pedaled on fiercely. Spike kept abreast with her if he could and following along after if a vehicle came by. Just two, over their four-hour countryside detour, both of which made him want to ditch the bikes and stand their ground, but Dru kept on riding, so he followed her lead. Both times, he slowed enough to slip in behind her as the truck drove up behind them, passed them, and kept on driving. He watched the lights fade and disappear into the darkness.

The countryside wasn’t nearly wild enough to hide out in properly, and just civilized enough to remind them of all the protections they weren’t allowed and all the luxuries they couldn’t have. The only thing the roads had to fully separate themselves out from the cities and little towns were the stars, and halfway through the journey, just after the border, Dru set her bike aside and stopped to look. Spike stopped too, and didn’t speak as she stared upwards, waiting long minutes before he gently placed his hand on hers to bring her back to Earth.

She didn’t shiver, or tremble. She just nodded.

“Morning’s all far lit,” she said, slowly coming back from somewhere far away. “All far lit up, past what can be caught.”

“We’re not out to catch the morning sun,” he told her. “We’re out to beat it home. First in the race. We’d better get back to it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, eyes on the stars and voice in the present. “In a moment.”

“A minute, even,” he allowed.

A moment, a minute, the time soon passed, and they were back on their way. Signs of the city crept up around them, and they found a room well before dawn began blowing kisses at the horizon, that they left the next night without paying to keep on pedaling, taking the absolute zero-degree incline for as long as it lasted.

They’d told the errand boy they were heading for the Hague, in case their worry was deserved. Since neither of them were planning on throwing themselves at anyone’s mercy just yet, they found another little town of a city to cool their heels in for a short while. No nightlife, no decent butcher shops, but that was fine enough for now. Biking the streets deep in the night and in the smallest of the small hours of the morning was a fair enough way to pretend. All the humans asleep in their houses, the two of them practically the only nighttime creatures, helped them not think about the absence of all other creeping beasties.

Beasties, yeah. No getting rid of those without cracking the world apart. But the ones that crept and the ones that skittered and the ones that moved quiet in the dark were slowly vanishing. With the Slayers rolling through the land, it didn’t matter what their main target was. They’d want to get their hands dirty, their knuckles scraped, get a few good punches in before bedtime. Better to get out of their way before they arrived, and as it turned out, best of all was abandoning moving quiet in the dark, no more creeping and no more skittering, and step into the light.

A _diurnal_ demon world, them going out and about their business in full daylight, buying groceries and sitting in parks and taking the bus to work, _having_ work to go to, employed openly in banks and hardware stores, right along with humans. He and Dru watched the full hour and a half piece on CNN fascinated, disgusted, scared. No one they knew got an interview, thank every skulking beast from all known and conquered hells – he couldn’t have taken an old poker buddy made up for the lights and camera sitting in a studio and putting on a pleasant, benign face. He’d have thrown the telly out the window and they’d have had to find a way to safely leave well before sundown, and have missed the other talking heads and Council representatives talk about what went into making this brave new world that had such people in it possible. The work everyone was doing, both sides, if one side a lot more than the other, to keep all this going. How it was still new, but it’d soon hopefully become part of the everyday.

It wasn’t happening as much in this little village of a town as it was in America, but this town didn’t do _anything_ as much as America. It did do one thing the _same_ as America.

No vampires.

Even a nowhere place like this usually had at least one bloodsucker in the back, just around the edges. Someone who’d hunt carefully, wouldn’t make a fuss, keep things quiet enough people would mutter and not so loud that they’d talk. But the way things were going, Spike counted himself lucky if he smelled old dust.

He and Dru sniffed around, poked their noses where they didn’t belong, and came up with nothing. The next little town, the same. And they biked along, one hamlet and village after another, learning how to give up hope and cling to it stubbornly at the same time.

October chased the warmth out of the air and brought in the cold – early autumn in far western Germany being the absolute depth of a memorably harsh winter for southern California and a typical spring for eastern Poland. Dru laughed at his hot showers, and he bore the teasing with as much grace as he could muster.

“Care to join me?” he tossed out across the hotel room, and she laughed, rolling over to look at him upside-down from the bed through the open bathroom door.

“Not with her in there beside you,” she giggled. “Not unless it’s you and you alone I’m with.” She righted herself to prop her chin up on her hands, elbows on the thin, raggedy blanket. “And it’d be no use to pretend.”

“I’m not pretending,” he told her. “I’m just playing.”

“Oh, in _that_ case, it’s only unkind instead of cruel.”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

“No, there’s no need for that. You carry her always, and…”

Spike looked up to see her lying faceup on the bed. “Dru?” She whined from deep in her throat and closed her eyes. “Love?” He rested a hand on her arm, then maneuvered over to crouch beside her.

“Still don’t know,” she said. “Was it her, all this time? That she was always inside you from the very start? I saw it, all the way back, saw her around you, but what you said – I saw her as you said it, and you only saw me as you said it, and could it have been I made what I saw?”

“Don’t ask yourself that,” he whispered to her, brushing a finger over her cheek. “Don’t ask yourself about the what-might-have-beens. It’s happened, now, happened and come to pass and we’re living on and seeing what’s still to come. There’s no use in looking back and trying to figure out if it was you or me or her the primal mover of all this. It’s been moved. We’re still going.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. He felt something close to sorrow rise in his chest, quiet; he pushed it back down below where he could feel it. “Isn’t that enough?”

Dru rested a hand on his cheek, then gently pushed him away. He let himself move backwards, not quite tumbling to the floor, before climbing back up onto the bed and rolling over, letting Dru be the big spoon for a change. Leaving his back open to her, showing vulnerability and trust in a way he knew she’d grasp. As many ways to apologize as there were to hurt someone’s feelings. And the next morning, and the day after that, until she clambered around to sleep face-to-face again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Groosalugg's given name comes from [That Mutual Dance of Mighty Heroism by Tassoss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268345), and you should all head over there and give it a big hand.


	4. I'd take the bed warmed by the body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from "Nobody" by Hozier.

Being back in Germany meant cars again, and that meant a place to sleep wherever they went, no matter where they found themselves come sunrise. That it was getting deeper into autumn, with winter closing in, meant food was harder to come by. Cows staying inside meant having to stick to cities to eat, and it was harder to be cautious when they got hungry.

Barely fifteen years ago, Spike would’ve been happy to eat the first hitchhiker they came across, or feast on some lost, homeless person stinking to high heaven with rich, sweet blood pumping through their veins. It wasn’t the soul. It wasn’t trying not to leave a trail of bodies. It wasn’t knowing people he’d come to love wouldn’t like it. It was all of those together, in ways he couldn’t pick apart and didn’t much want to. Let that knowledge of who he wasn’t anymore settle across his shoulders and down his spine and let the hunger and weariness lull him to sleep in the cold, short days.

Spike had always loved winter. Even when he’d been alive, and the soot of London had stained the snow the instant it touched the ground, he’d found wonder and joy in the way it felt so strong and so fragile – frost could shatter a man, and be broken in moments just from the heat of his hands, back when he’d been warm. He and Dru used to make the most of the season’s short days and long nights and the cold that seeped through the world. They’d warmed themselves up from the inside out, feeling nearly alive with fresh blood in their mouths and the chilly air sinking its claws just beneath the edges of their skin, fully aware of how dead they were and how magnificent that was. They’d walked through the streets of all the world’s grand cities, arm in arm, every beautiful and wonderful thing simply theirs for the taking.

Winter made it easier. Snow made it better, and simpler, when even the people that liked the cold, rare breed that they were, would find ways to leave it behind for the safety and warmth of what lay beyond a house’s threshold. The streets were busy at night with that rare breed, and Spike and Dru blended in well enough to head out and take some pleasure in being near so many people for the first time in far too long. It didn’t last. It couldn’t, no matter how long the street fairs ran into the night. There was always having to be careful, doing what it took to stay safe.

It was a few days before the Solstice, at a hotel where burning it to the ground would be doing it a favor. He and Dru were curled up deep under the covers, not an inch of skin touching the chilly air outside their little cave, the blankets giving no insulation but a sense of comfort just the same. He woke up without opening his eyes and lay still, Dru’s knees against his legs, her arms against his hands. She didn’t move, and he didn’t either, him knowing she was awake and her knowing the same about him. When he opened his eyes, the faint, wan winter light through curtains and then the covers was so thin it was only enough to make out the faint shape of her. Not the look on her face or the emotion in her eyes. But he didn’t need to see her to know that. He knew from the way she moved her hand gently, to trace over the back of his hand, and slid her fingers in between his to hold his hand close to hers.

Buffy’s body was always so warm compared to his. No matter how long he spent in a hot shower, or sunbathing behind necro-tempered glass, he never got close to her heat. He always felt her body around his, her temperature stoked high as a steamship’s boiler room and his skin heated by the touch of hers against him. He’d been fascinated and aroused and drawn to that. With Buffy, every time was the two of them together, without question.

Spike had nearly forgotten the way it was to be with someone else who felt exactly the same as he did. How it was to be with someone who didn’t make any heat of their own, who could reach out towards him whose skin was so alike as to almost not know they were touching. To forget there were two of them together and to not know where he ended and she began and to be a single creature made up of many parts with all of him and all of her washed into one.

After it was over, and they were two people again, Dru padded off to the washroom and Spike moved to sit on the side of the bed, his head in his hands. Dru soon pressed a water-warmed hand to his face, sliding it under his palm to tilt his head up and have him look her in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. Her hand was warm against his face, still far from what he remembered of Buffy’s living heat. “I’m sorry, Dru. I shouldn’t…I wasn’t thinking. I was only…”

“Only feeling,” she said. “Knowing the sunshine’s gone behind the clouds and still seeking light as best you can find it. Starlight, dead light, moonshine only reflected sunlight and never making any of its own. Enough to see the nighttime by. No hurt’s done to me, I promise you. No hurt but the memory of how sharp the weapon that cut the old wound that’s long since healed.”

“How long’s it been?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“Ages and ages. Since well before the forest. No, Spike. Don’t think on me with sorrow,” she said, tilting his head back up as he tried to dip it down in shame. “Healed well, and healed strong, and not looking to be cut such a way again. But still nice, still good, to have a reminder of what’s been lost. To help make the future something new.”

He tried to smile, but couldn’t manage. She clicked her tongue, and he said, “I don’t think I can do that again.”

“Not asking for it again. Well. I’d certainly be happy to, myself, save for how it pulls you under.” She looked right into his eyes. “I can’t ask such hurt to you for such pleasure to me.”

Dru stood tall before him, her hand cooling against his skin, warming it, before both their bodies went cold again. Ordinary heat transference doing its work. Not long ago, he’d laid with his arms around Buffy, held her close long enough to carry her living heat on his skin, as comforting a presence as Buffy herself.

He didn’t think she’d understand, if he tried to explain tonight to her. He could spin it as a vampire thing, could say it didn’t break any bonds of fidelity because it went far past such feelings. He could say he’d been weak and not thinking of her, or he’d thought they’d never see each other again and he wanted another body against his and it hadn’t mattered who it was. He could try to tell her something she might have a chance of believing, but he hated trying to lie. He’d never had any skill for it.

Even if Buffy never knew, if neither he nor Dru ever told her, he knew he’d know, forever, and wouldn’t be able to hold her against him and feel her warmth again and not have a moment of soul-deep loneliness echo through every movement of his body against hers, every word he spoke to her. The three girls out in the woods – there’d been nothing to explain. There was nothing he could ask of her, if he ever saw her again, about his killing those three girls in the woods. And there was nothing he could ask of her, if he ever saw her again, of his worry and weariness that pushed him to find a moment’s escape in being with another person so closely as to not be himself anymore. Just for a moment, he hadn’t carried any sorrow.

“You’ll find a way to tell her,” Dru said. She dropped her hand and sat beside him on the bed, and he reached out towards her and pulled back. “Always been your gift, finding the words.”

“And what if I don’t want to?”

“Never been your style to live with secrets.” She shrugged. “You’ll feel the fair amount of regret and seek amends through honesty.” He nodded in agreement. “I can’t say I’m sorry, save for how we’ve now hurt one another in a way I never imagined seeing.”

“It’ll be easier, next time we’re all lonely,” he said bitterly.

“Trust yourself more than that,” she replied. “Trust me more than that, my dear Spike. Better a proper song sung badly than to play to not want to sing.”

“I know.” For a bare moment there, it’d only been them as one. No running, no hiding, no fear of what’d been lost and what might not be found again. No loneliness, just such closeness as he’d missed from being with someone, anyone, that he could hold to him. In any way he could. Which Dru understood, and which Buffy might accept. Forgiveness was always beyond his asking. It was something that could only be given freely, willingly, and were she here, he would vow to do the work to be worthy to accept such a gift.

She was somewhere far beyond his reach, and her not being here was no excuse and among the worst of all reasons.

“Leave the sorrow,” Dru said. “Carry the lesson.”

He smiled, kissed her cheek, washed himself clean and lay down beside her, holding her in his arms, back-to-front. He pressed his face into her hair, now nearly to her chin.

“It was still nice,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” he said, just as quietly. “It was.”

They ditched the car they’d been using the last few days, opting instead for a bus to take them somewhere they’d been before. Germans knew how to reinvent themselves better than nearly anyone else, not forgetting the past and not being encumbered by it, either. He figured all the bombings had helped some. Dresden was still beautiful, by either gas or electric light, and enough of it looked the same as the last time they’d been there, Spike was fairly well certain he’d be able to find what he was looking for quick enough to go through with it.

It wasn’t just the one old appetite which had been awoken. It was the other, deeper one, and the cold and the weeks without a decent meal made it a need and not just a want. One good feeding could last a vampire a good long while. 

Even during his lowest years on Earth – he still dreamed about it, sometimes, on bad nights, blue-white pain shredding him apart from the inside out, his skull to his spine to his soul – he’d managed a few decent meals, when he’d had the dosh to afford one. He’d willingly handed over ill-gotten gains for overpriced, hospital-expired haemoglobin at a run-down demon dive and he’d only twice considered degrading himself to fall so low as to willingly choose the other option available. No matter how well he’d have fed or how well he’d have been paid just to eat.

He’d had his pride, and more importantly, Buffy wouldn’t have liked it.

It was Dru who spotted the mark on the other side of the club. An older woman who looked nearly Joyce’s age, not quite out of place in the basement dance hall, not quite fitting in, either. She had the look of someone recently sober, who still remembered how good it felt for something to slide through her system and knew her memories would be all she had left of those incandescently joyful moments and was having to learn to live with that.

“Her,” Dru said, pointing with her chin. “She’s the one we want. It’s not been so long for her, being pulled deep and finding herself a feast, she’ll still let herself remember.”

Spike didn’t ask if she was sure. No reason to waste the breath. He walked carefully across the dance floor, easily sidestepping all other bodies, weaving through the crowd to stand beside the pale, heavy woman with light brown hair slouching against the wall. Up close, he could see the small cracks in her face well-hidden by makeup, the etched lines of heavy smiling. The long sleeves all the way down to her wrists and the longing in her eyes – the hunger for something she knew she couldn’t find here, but still came to remember where she’d once come to look.

“Good evening,” Spike said, gentle as you please.

She didn’t look at him.

“Decent music,” he went on. She sipped her drink; he caught a whiff of the dry-dirt smell of distilled potato. Not even the gritty sunshine of something distilled from grains. She was drinking to get drunk and going for the best-priced option. “Listen, if you want to –” 

“No, thank you,” she said in English, pointedly looking away.

“Come on, now,” he growled, grabbing her shoulder.

“I’m not in the mood for –” She whipped her head around and nearly screamed. Nearly, because she clamped both hands over her mouth, her glass falling to the floor and shattering to a thousand tiny pieces.

Spike let himself grin for a bare second before sliding his fangs away. Her eyes stayed wide, the whites almost glistening with fresh tears, her hands and body trembling. Tight as she pressed her hands to her mouth, tiny sounds still escaped through her fingers, thin and heavy, too faint for him to tell if they were in any human language or just the sounds of animal wonder.

“In English, pet, if you can,” he said.

“Ah.” She nodded. “Ah.” She lowered her hands, her teeth nearly chattering. “I thought you were gone.”

“Most of us, yeah.”

“I’d thought you…I didn’t…you’re coming back?”

“Just here for a little while, look, let’s get right into it. I know what you used to do, and –”

“No,” she said, quick, afraid. “No, I don’t do that anymore. It isn’t what I do now. It’s not –”

“We’d pay you,” he cut in, breaking her babble.

“We?”

“My lady and I. We’d pay you. I know it’s usually the other way ’round, but you know how things are out there, and it’s not like we need the money much as you do. Follow me. This way.” He took two steps, not looking back, because looking back was a sign of weakness and worry and if he was to be the big, bad vampire she wanted him to be, there’d be none of that from him tonight. Much as he felt it quake through his soul, he didn’t look back.

She followed, just the same.

“I can’t…not both of you. Not like how it was. There’s not enough in me for that. One of you, I could. But not both.” Verena smoothed her skirts and fought back a tremble as she sat on the room’s one chair, Dru sitting on the bed and Spike leaning against the wall by the door. “You could each get a couple mouthfuls, maybe a bit more, and that’s all I can give you.”

“Your friends,” Dru told her. She leaned forward, tilting her head upwards, and Verena looked ready to climb backwards out of the chair.

“I’m sorry?”

“No one else who understood how it is to carry the ocean all inside you, how it is to give life over so fully. Only those beside you, those with you, who parade through the edges of the dark. You still know them. All their names and where to find them. Just one will do.”

“One more’s all we need,” Spike said. “You for her and the other for me. An’ we’ll be on our way out of the city.”

Verena looked back and forth from Spike to Dru and back. “No,” she said, hard. “No, I can’t do that.” She sat up straight, clenching her hands. “If you leave now, even after this – I’ll go for her, tonight, yes. But I could find a way to keep you here for a while.”

“In chains?” Dru sniffed. “Hardly.”

“Not in chains,” she said. “Just – safer. Safer than this. I know what they’ve been doing to you. I’m not one of those beloved-of-the-darkness-lonely-people types. I know what you are. I’m not one of those feed-them-so-they-don’t-hunt types, either. I know what I am. I knew the vampires I paid cared more about me living through to the morning than the heroin dealers ever did, and I made my choice, and when the Slayers came and got me clean, I knew I couldn’t say how sorry I was to see you go because they wouldn’t understand.” She glared at Spike, who bit his tongue to keep from saying _some of them would_. She went on, “I’ll find ways to ask. I’ll see who I know is still willing, like I am. And I’ll take your money, but I don’t want to see you go on like this. Not right now. Not when you’re both clearly this hungry.”

“She eats tonight,” Spike snapped.

“I know that,” Verena said, slowly, carefully – not out of fear, and not to upset. “You’ll get fed soon, too. But you’re not leaving this city until you eat.”

“You can promise that,” Spike said flatly. “Go on. Look into her eyes and promise that.”

Verena looked into Dru’s eyes, and spoke very carefully: “I promise you both will be able to eat in safety.”

Dru looked at Spike and nodded. “Good enough for me,” he said, and as they got comfortable on the bed, he counted out the bills and put it on the dresser. Verena sighed once when Dru’s fangs hit the inside of her elbow in between all the other needlepoint scars, and again, when she slid her fangs away to eat with blunt human teeth. The burning copper smell hit Spike’s nostrils and the top of his mouth like a stripping sirocco and he had to grit his teeth to keep his fangs away. He stood ready to jump in if Dru forgot herself, but she ate slowly, and carefully, and he could tell from her shoulders she stopped before she was done. She sat back, licking up the last stray drops from around her mouth, and quickly moved off the bed to sit in the chair.

“You taste like flowers,” she said, as Verena pressed a clean towel to her skin. “Like the smell of them in the end of springtime. Heavy and ragged and the petals ready to fall.” She tilted her head and smiled. “Stubbornly clinging to the branches. A hard rain would –”

“Here,” Spike cut in, handing Verena the largest Band-Aid the local all-night pharmacy had on its shelves. She wasn’t looking sick, just shaken, like she’d finished watching a horror movie. Dru had eaten so neatly one giant Band-Aid was all Verena needed. She took the cash without counting the money, making a show of trusting him to have given her enough. He asked, “How’s it you want us all to keep in touch?”

“I’ll be back at the dance hall in four days.” She stood up and set her shoulders. “I’ll let you know how it goes then.”

After she left, Dru looked at Spike with a grin, her lips full and her cheeks bright. “It’s an orchard,” she breathed. “Old trees still bearing fruit.” She reached out and he took her hands, letting her pull him down onto the bed to lie next to her, rolling onto his side to meet her eyes; she took his fingers and pressed them to her skin. Not warm, but supple. Close to life, borrowed for a time. “Rich and laden, heavy branches bowing down. Easy to pick the ripest.”

“All we’re doing is gleaning, pet,” Spike told her, stroking over her face and neck. “We’re not harvesting.”

“I remember when we did,” she whispered, reaching out to lay a hand on his face. “Do you? The bounty we took back to share. Ripe and warm.” He nodded, and she let her hand lie heavy and still. “How good it feels to be fed.”

“Not something you forget.” Back then, dusting them would’ve been doing the world a favor.

“Tricky to remember.” She pressed her fingers down against his cheek. He opened his mouth and she slid her fingers inside, running them over his teeth, probing carefully, but he didn’t let his fangs come down.

The four days passed slowly, for all the time they could take outdoors and enjoy the sky over their heads. Finally and at long last having something to look forward to was as much a weight as it was a liberation. Knowing they were safe – Dru would’ve said the second she had something if they weren’t – didn’t stop them from being wary and wanting to stay cautious. Checking crowds, never standing next to windows lit from behind, always staying in motion. When they climbed down the steps to the club, it was just as busy as when they’d seen it last, just as full of the scent of desperation and need and the howling smell of unhappy lust.

Verena was standing where they’d found her, two women of similar age and feature by her side. Uta kept her dark hair short in a men’s cut, not like Dru’s slowly growing bob, and Dagmar wore hers, wheat-light and just as straight, down past her shoulder blades. She didn’t tremble as Spike lay down next to her, or when he took her arm in his hands. She felt warm and she’d eaten well recently, made sure she’d had plenty to drink. She’d known this would be coming, had matched her earrings and her necklace to present herself nicely, didn’t have any scents on besides the faint hint of the soap she’d used to scrub herself clean. Dagmar had been looking forward to this. He and Dru had money for two women. Could easily get more if they needed in all sorts of quick ways. Money wasn’t the problem. Problem, such as it was, came in Verena maybe possibly thinking she could keep this going a while. Depended on how many people she knew were desperate for this. For fangs to hit their flesh and a hungry vampire to drink deep and be filled up.

Spike pressed his nose to her skin, his lips, his blunt teeth. Her skin was so soft in his mouth. The last time he’d had a human’s skin between his fangs – the last time _before_ that last time, she’d known how hungry he was, and hadn’t wanted him to wait, and made a gift to him of her blood. She’d made a gift of herself out of love.

Dagmar hissed as Spike bit her, and moaned as he drank, and whimpered as he held on tighter when she tried to move. He held _hard_ , enough to bruise, digging his fingers into her muscles to hold her to him and not let her get away. To break the veins deep under the skin and bring out more of that fear in her scent. Raise the tang of the blood. Really get the heart going. Press his tongue to the wound and taste the very stuff of life as he swallowed it down slowly. To savor the sweet pear and heady quince and the heavy, bright flavor of humanity that no four-legged creature could ever come close to giving him.

“There,” Dagmar whispered when he pulled off, desperate for more and sated enough he could trust himself to stop. “There. Now isn’t that better?”

He shoved her away. She yelped as she hit the floor, and Spike kept his gaze on her, not even blinking, as he stepped over and straddled her body, trapping her between his legs. 

“That how you remember it?” He growled. “Got everything you hoped for?” He bent down, not breaking eye contact. “You feed a lot of vamps what knew how to stop before they finished? Your new madam vouch for us, make sure it’s to everyone’s benefit, good vibes all around? She tell you who we are? You –”

Dru made a sound. He looked over at her, standing next to Uta who was curled up while still standing, no mean feat, making herself small. Dru raised her fingers at him, sliding one down over the other.

“Been a long time since he’s eaten properly,” she said in apology and explanation. “It does things to us, when it’s been so long.”

“Yes,” Spike said slowly, turning back to Dagmar, pulling his fangs away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have scared you.” He stepped away, letting her get to her feet by herself. Offering a hand wouldn’t do her any favors.

She gulped down a bottle of water and gobbled the biscuits while Dru fed off Uta. Neatly, and carefully, and more slowly than she’d done to Verena a few nights earlier. Spike knew she hated being hungry even more than he did. They’d both grown up eating well and still managed it well enough, her hunting when she could and him very nearly domesticated.

Very nearly. Not entirely.

And they’d both learned, long ago, how to survive on very little.

They paid the three women in cash and, after they’d all gone, settled in to wait long enough to not look like they were trailing after them. An hour would do it well enough, so Spike opened the windows, finally able to properly feel the cold thanks to the warmth he’d swallowed down, and Dru turned on the telly, flicking through the channels until she got to an old BBC sitcom dubbed into German. She turned to look up at him with her face halfway between happiness and sympathy.

“How d’you want to leave?” he asked her.

“By train,” she told him.

“All right,” he said, and she turned back to the telly. If Dru said she wanted to leave by train, then by train it was that they were leaving. The studio audience’s laughs were still in place and the language ran to keep pace with them. Spike watched along with her from the bed, never quite getting into it enough to find it funny but parsing out enough to figure why it’d been that way once. Dru laughed, though he couldn’t pick out the rhyme or reason for it; she wasn’t following along with the audience’s directions. She could have been laughing at the screen or something in her head, but he supposed it didn’t much matter what she was laughing at, so long as she was happy.

After a few minutes, he slipped down to join her on the floor. She didn’t seem to notice, but leaned against his body when he settled next to her. They sat together, the heat off and the cold seeping through the air, both of them nearly warm. They held each other skin-to-skin, her laughing and him trying to lose his sorrow in the sounds of her laughing until enough time had passed it was safe to leave. Three episodes, more than enough time to let the three women disperse to wherever it was they were going. So with fresh human blood thrumming in their veins, having finally eaten enough to remember what it was like to be full and see how far they were from there, the two of them left the door unlocked behind them and began making their way to the station. 

It was a cold winter, even for Germany. The coldest in a long time, the newscasters kept saying, diagrams and numbers the same in every language, on every station around the world. It was cold enough only the warmest people went out by choice, trying on the simple courage of braving the streets in the chill and the dark and finding it suited them. Spike watched them walk along, bundled up and making jollity of their discomfort, and he pulled his useless overcoat closer around his neck and kept walking.

They drifted between crowds and down long streets, the pulse of the humans around them never possible to ignore and now almost too much to dismiss. The hectic stink of so many bodies together, all the movement and work of living right around them with the taste of it still fresh in his memory making him want to howl. It made him want to disavow half-measures and abandon his old oaths and return to being a feral beast. Tear through the city, rip it down if that pleased him, eat his fill and never mind the mess. It made him want to find someone who’d happily drive a stake through him and keep him from ever looking into Buffy’s eyes again and make sure she’d never see him raised back down after having been cast so far up.

Dru tightened her grasp on his elbow. “Enough,” she said. “You’ve not punched through your ticket just yet.” She stopped, taking his face in hand and turning his chin so he’d look her in the eyes. “There’s still rides upon it to be redeemed. Don’t tear it into pieces before you’ve used it up.” She stroked his cheek, and ran a hand across his head, catching a little bit of hair between her fingers. Enough to catch, now.

Spike didn’t ask if she was seeing what he’d literally be doing with his train ticket in a week’s time, or what he figuratively was doing with his future. She’d made her point clear enough.

Gone were the days one could simply walk up to a counter and ask for _‘the next train out of here’_ and be able to get a ticket for exactly that. Now, you needed to have a destination in mind, even if it was a spur-of-the-moment choice based on the switchboards and which soon-to-be-departed-for cities sounded least familiar, and had to be bothered to pick out a seat, to boot. That the city they’d decided on was north of them was a bonus: any additional nighttime would be welcome. The next train northward wouldn’t come in for another twenty minutes, so the two of them settled in to watch and wait. Ten minutes passed, and it was nothing but the press and movement of humanity. Families, tourist groups, lone passengers, couples, everyone trying to get somewhere else. Fifteen, and more of the same. Twenty, and their train slid in, none of the great belching smoke and fire that they’d had once. Just pure mechanical wonder, smooth and elegant, absolutely nothing living about it.

Boarding the train was easy enough, at least until it came time to ditching their assigned seats and finding a decently out-of-the-way spot, a back corner of a car they could curl up together until they got where they were going. But there was a woman from one of the tourist groups who kept fumbling with her suitcase. The side bin was nearly full, and she couldn’t manage to lift it enough to stick it on top of what was already in there. She tried to heft it up, get herself under it and hoist it off the floor, but couldn’t manage a proper stance to get her hands around it.

Dru rolled her eyes, picked it up by the handle, and lobbed it into the overhead bin without even changing her expression. “Oh,” the woman said, quietly. “Thank you.”

“Most welcome,” Dru said, and stepped over to a little table. She gestured, and Spike took the window seat, her the aisle. And their lucky new friend slid in across from them, well removed from where their tickets said they’d be sitting.

“You check yours?” she asked. She had a narrow, heavy face, and a smattering of freckles between her faint wrinkles to go with her light brown hair that was cropped short in the style popular among the new breed of women of a certain age. “I should’ve checked mine, but we’re already running late, and I figured, better to get it with me when I get off. Leave! Leave the train.” She laughed at her own joke. “So where are you heading? I might need you again to get it down.” She kept smiling at her small misfortune of having to rely on others to get around. “Oh, Jacqueline, nice to meet you,” 

“Vincent,” Spike introduced himself, “and Elsa,” he gestured towards Dru, who held out a hand to shake. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Yeah, same, same.” Her broad American accent was downright pleasant to hear. All those lovely big vowels dropping heavy like stones in a pond. “And call me Jackie if you want.”

“As you like, Jackie,” Dru said.

“How’d you find Dresden?” Spike asked.

“Oh, beautiful! Beautiful, those churches, all the cobblestones. You – I mean, you’re British, you’re from _around_ here, you ever been there before?”

“Good long time ago,” Dru answered. “The lights were different then. Gentler to the skies.”

“Huh. I think I read about that,” Jackie nodded. “Light pollution, right? So how’s it now? To how it was then, I mean.”

“Quieter,” Dru said. “Sadder. We went out dancing every night. Back then it was easy to get our fill.”

“Like Elsa said, it’s been a long time since we were through here,” Spike explained, glancing at Dru, telling her with his eyes _let me do the talking_. “Anytime we go somewhere we’ve already been, we’re tryin’ not to think, what was it like last time we came around here? But we can’t help it. Just how it goes.”

“Do I get you there!” Jackie chuckled. “Do I ever.”

“So what brings you out here?” As the train pulled out of the station, he turned his head and watched the city slip by faster than he’d ever seen it move. The train glided smoothly along the track, not even any gentle rocking, only the barest awareness of movement from the train itself. Easier to figure that out by looking at the rest of the world. “Big package tour group?”

“Sort of, yeah.” She shifted to put her legs up on the seatrest. Spike couldn’t stop smiling at the blatantly American manifest destiny attitude towards personal space. “I’d wanted to see Europe for ages, Europe by train, not by car, thank you, by _train_ , that’s important. So – like that!” She pointed out the window. “Just seems romantic, doing it by train. Very twentieth century. Isn’t it crazy we can say that now?”

“Not as much as you’d think,” Spike said.

“Anyway. I figured, I’m retiring, I got a little money, it’s just me in the house, Jackie, take a few weeks to get that fairytale trip in. And I heard about this thing from a friend, thought it’d be easier with people, we’re getting a group hotel rate, whole thing’s taken care of. It’s a bit, we gotta go here and then go there, but that’s what I signed up for. And I’m making friends all over the place. You two got emails? Facebooks? I’m adding all these people everywhere.”

“No,” Spike said. “We’re still stuck a century or two back for that.”

Jackie grinned. “The future’ll catch up to you soon enough. Anyway. That’s why I’m here, trying to see this part of the world because I can do that now. Five weeks through Europe. Yeah, it’s fast, and I’d like to come back and spend maybe a week just in _one_ city, not a couple, three-four days, but I’m kind of liking it anyway. Get a whirlwind tour – what?” She pulled back, fully serious, as both of them laughed. “Did I make a joke in British?”

“No, no,” Dru laughed again, trailing a hand through the air. “You’ve just said a family thing of Vincent and me. A _very_ old family thing. I won’t bore you to explain. You said it without knowing, which makes it all the more wonderful.”

“Okay, then,” Jackie settled back down. “Getting a… _fast_ tour of the place,” she winked, “it’s been fun to see all these places for myself and not just read about them. It makes them into something real.”

“And it’s just money and time that kept you from coming over?” Spike asked, to keep Jackie talking. To keep her engaged, and pass the time, and speak to someone for no reason other than a little bit of company. It was the same sort of wanting that had Dru listen to DJs chat in Polish just to hear human voices. And, honestly, Jackie was an interesting enough lady to make both of them happy Dru’d helped her with her luggage. She’d spent years in public service, surveys and tests that ought to have been boring except she really meant it when she talked about how much she’d liked them. It was always a treat to see someone’s face light up with love of their work.

Buffy still hid that light, sometimes. She’d admit to it, quietly and privately, like a secret kept from childhood that needed to stay protected and safe. She’d said it was a bad influence on the new ones. Didn’t want them to like what they were too much.

Should’ve hidden it harder.

Spike flipped the conversation away from the two of them as much as he could – he’d quit his last job a while back, education work, looking for something new to fill his time with Elsa in much the same position, letting Jackie to fill in the details herself – and kept her focusing and talking about herself. If she noticed what he was doing, she didn’t seem to mind. Things like wanting solid American breakfasts, not all the meals all the time, just _breakfast_ , took up nearly a half-hour alone. The countryside slid past, towns and fields and those old, noble forests the Germans so loved, until they arrived at their terminus. He and Dru hadn’t planned on another big city right after Dresden, especially not one so large and grand and so full of old memories as Berlin, but they’d also wanted a quick way out, and they’d get their choice pick of those from here.

There’d be trouble anywhere they went. It was just a surprise to find it first thing, right at the station. The building was nothing like he and Dru remembered, new flesh and skin stretched tight over brittle bones, not a single corner or curve designed to show the weight of a place meant to last. They’d wanted to slip into the crowd he’d automatically scanned for a certain kind of blonde hair, disappear into the bodies and find a quiet place to wait out the day, but it’d be tricky to do that quick and easy with a gaggle of paper-checkers spread out all over the place. Little booths and tables springing up between the platforms, by ticket machines, women and girls and a couple men, too, walking around in smart uniforms with clipboards and small devices like they owned the place.

Like they were looking for something.

Spike turned to Dru. She met his eyes. “Ring-around,” she whispered, and he nodded.

“Hey!” He jumped to his feet. “Hang on a moment, hang on there, let’s give you a hand with that, yeah?” He sidled up to one of Jackie’s friends, Ivy, a woman a few years her senior who wore her aged-whitened hair in a short-cut afro and her lined face without any vanity. He made a bit of a show of getting her suitcase out of the overhead bin, grunting and pretending to have a spot of trouble with things, smiling when it was down and refusing to hand it off to her. “No, don’t worry about us, her and me, we checked our bags, no trouble at all to help a lady. Elsa, you get Jackie’s, you two go on ahead, we’ll be right behind. You’ve got people waiting for you out there. Go on, you catch up.” With Jackie vouching for the two of them, that sealed the deal for Ivy. Spike waved them along, letting a few people from the tourist group fill up a space in between him and Dru, and then began making his way off the train and through the crowd.

Through the crowd, and into a surprise inspection. Two women were stopping people just after they came off the train, as they walked down the platform, checking all of them one by one in case of something, in case of anything, clearly hoping to find a very particular, specific entity to make the whole enterprise worth everyone’s time. 

Quite possibly two.

“What’s all this?” one of Jackie’s tourist group asked, four bodies ahead of him. “Seriously, what is all this?”

“Travel inspection, nothing more,” the girl answered in a soft low country accent. “We’ve had reports of some dangerous activity happening in the region, so we’re just running a thorough sweep. It’s for your own safety.”

“The TSA made it out here?” She muttered. “Criminy.”

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” the girl went on, “but you cooperate, it’ll be over fast.” She sounded like she believed what she was doing would help someone, somewhere. The whole _if one life is saved_ schtick. Spike took in a deliberate breath, rolled his neck, and pulled his tongue towards the back of his mouth.

“Of course,” she shook her head. “What d’you need?”

“Papers.” The woman answered. “We’ll scan you with this soon as we check your papers. It’ll take just a few seconds, maybe a minute. You’ll be on your way in a moment.”

“Ah. Ah! Excuse me. I say, I _say,”_ Spike spoke loudly, not shouting, simply raising his voice and letting his childhood accent soar up to meet the ceiling. “Would you mind, would you please, I say would you _please_ let us through!” Everyone turned to look at him. He crossed his arms and pulled a look of haughtiness learned from the best. “We’ve got –”

“I’m sure you do, sir,” the woman growled. “But just a moment and let the _queue_ run, we’ll get to you in time.”

“I’m afraid that won’t work,” he said, not snappy, not snippy, simply _you’re so far beneath me I’m doing you a favor of talking to you._ “As I was saying, thank you, we’ve people waiting for us. Right over there, the rest of our group, you can see them from here, hello, Jackie!” He waved, and she turned, waving back. “Jackie, Ivy!” Now half the group had their eyes on him. “You see, right there, you’ve let _them_ through, now if you’d be so kind as to let us join them?”

“Look, I can’t –”

“No, no, I see how this is.” He stepped forward to the front of the line, Dru three women behind him. “I see how this is. You have to make sure everything’s logged correctly, you need to check each and every passport and ticket, when you know _full_ well there’s no reason to, not when the Council is already doing _such_ good work.” Both women drew back, surprised at his boldness at invoking its presence, breaking the contract of not speaking it aloud. “Of course you’ve got to check each single person in the queue,” he gestured behind, letting their grumbling carry him along, “when there’s no solid justification to holding us up, when you could simply let us through, please.”

“Sir,” the woman began.

“They’re right there,” Spike said. “You can see them. They’re waiting for us. Could you just be kind for _once_ tonight, perhaps?”

“Look,” the woman tried again. “We’re just doing –”

“Oh no. Oh _no,”_ Spike let his eyes go wide, pulling his voice even farther back in history, calling on centuries of yelling at the world slow and loud to get the unruly, unwashed masses to fall in line. “Not in this country, not in this city, you’re not saying that _here_ , are you?” She stopped, suddenly aware of what she’d almost let fall out of her mouth. “You can see our friends from here, waiting for us, hoping you’ll let us join them. Now would you _please_ simply let us through?”

Centuries of yelling at the world slow and loud caught up to the world. He and the rest of the group, Dru included, got waved on through. He got an apology thrown in for his troubles, which he hardly deigned to acknowledge, and didn’t let himself be so crude or so weak as to look back.

“Here you are,” Spike said, letting his accent slip out as he handed over the luggage.

“How – I didn’t think you talked like that,” Jackie said, bemused.

“My _mother_ talked like that,” he explained.

“Oh, she did!” Dru piped in, back by his side. He elbowed her gently.

“It takes some work to get it going, remember the right way to make all the sounds, but – it’s got its uses.” He grinned, and everyone smiled back. “Anyway. Thanks for helping with the queue.”

“No problem,” Jackie said, and Spike had to keep smiling, that wonderful American _no problem._ “But I guess this is goodbye. We’ve gotta be off, and you’d better go get your luggage.” She pulled another bemused face at his own confusion. “That you checked?”

“Right! Elsa, we’d best get on that. Ivy, Jackie, lovely meeting you both, perhaps we’ll meet again someday.” Kissing their hands was a bit much, but it brought honest laughter to their lips, making it well worth the trouble. He and Dru waved good-bye, slipping through the station and into the city. Nobody bothered to look at them twice, with few people even bothering once.

It’d have been a relief to stop running. Not a welcome one, and a release, nonetheless. And who could say, maybe they’d have been kind enough to let him see her one last time.

He and Dru kept the cash and credit cards, dropping the wallets full of IDs and family photos in an underground platform six stops from the train station. The photos were enough to give Spike a pang of guilt, something irreplaceable that’d be a while in getting back to its owner. He pushed it down, reassuring himself this was too law-abiding a city to leave them lost for long, and with the money gone, there wasn’t any motivation to be selfish. There’d be replacements and refunds for all fraudulent charges, which made making the most of the brief time they were good of vital import.

Berlin well past midnight in late November was lively enough there wasn’t any trouble finding a suitably posh hotel that’d put on a good face for two new guests careening through the lobby with no luggage or spare clothes at three in the morning. Just like old times. The place was posh enough for bathrobes to already be hanging in the closet, and Dru slipped into one without taking off her clothes.

“We’ve got two nights, maybe three, before these all get burned,” Spike said, pulling the curtains tight. “Could probably pull cash off a couple before that happens, work the banks.”

“No reason to keep digging through the sand,” Dru said, sitting down on the far corner of the bed. “It’s not your will that makes the tides behave.”

“Quite right, pet. That’s the moon’s job.” He sat on the other end and started unlacing his boots. “Was thinkin’ of checking out the really old names in the city. You know, way down in the sewers. Probably do better with you there, just to have some company.”

“No use in that.” He glanced up and cocked his head, laces dangling. “There’s no dancing without proper music, without the right harmonies, and there’s no singing here.”

“No singing now? How long’s it been since there was dancing?”

“Oh, so very long.” She looked away, towards the wall. “They sang the greatest song since Jericho so close to here, and nothing’s been raised so high since. It’s only little tunes. Echoes.”

“Think it’s worth it to check them out anyway?” He started pulling his boots off, setting them down carefully at the foot of the bed. “See if we can find someone who remembers that singing?”

“Can’t see why not,” she said, beginning to unlace her own boots. “Even if it’s only little tunes, there might be some music in them worth remembering.” She shook out her hair, then turned to look at him, face and eyes focused and clear. “Let’s take a bath,” she said. “The two of us. Like in the old days. Let’s make a play to getting clean.” She nodded. “But no holding my head down. You’d lose your grip straightaway.”

“No handholds,” he said, feeling his shoulders loosen. “I’d have to get my whole hand around the back of your head, and it’s no _fun_ if it’s all that work to it.”

“Indeed not.” She stood and peeled her clothes off, then padded to the bath. “I’ll go get clean.” He smiled, fondly, and began getting nude as well.

Taking a bath wasn’t any fun if you were dirty. Bathing to get clean was all well and good, but getting clean to bathe was a truly wonderful thing. He didn’t join Dru in the shower, just waited until she was done, and the in-house toiletries smelled like the best marzipan he could ever remember tasting. He didn’t bother toweling off, either, as she filled the glorious European tub. There were far too few American hotels with decently sized bathtubs; he didn’t know why they bothered. Maybe to play into the urban legends of kidneys stolen by organ thieves.

Which were true enough, if by ‘organ thief’ they meant ‘Tajuru demon’ and by ‘kidneys stolen’ they meant ‘the entire torso and chest cavity picked clean with the ribs used as toothpicks afterwards.’

Funny, how these things changed over the course of Telephone.

But tonight, it was just him, Dru, and a big beautiful bathtub. No bubbles or salts or those little bombs Buffy and Dawn so enjoyed; nothing but water for him and Dru tonight. He scooted around to press his back against the tiles and lean a wrist on the tap while she lay her feet over his knees, sinking down until it was just her eyes above the water. Her hair fanned out around her, a strange kind of halo that wasn’t anything like the beautiful inky night that it’d been once upon a time. He still reached over to run his hands through it, and even though he knew it was coming, still came away oddly wistful when he could barely get in a decent stroke.

She let out some bubbles and he wiggled around to set his feet out over the rim. A minute later, he pulled them back into the water, and she giggled. He smiled at the feeling of the little waves reaching him and closed his eyes to better focus on the water all over his body. It was the ideal soaking temperature: a touch too hot that soon got perfect once two large room-temperature bodies were added to it and entropy could start doing its thing.

Another stream of bubbles and ripples came from Dru’s mouth, and she surfaced to take in a breath and say, “This is nice.”

“This is,” he agreed.

One advantage of being dead was no pruniness, no matter how long he stayed in the water. One disadvantage was not making any body heat of his own, so once the water balanced its heat with the rest of the universe, he was swimming in water the _exact_ same temperature as he was. If he let his mind drift, and let himself float a bit, it was hard to tell where he ended and the water began. If he let his mind drift, instead of focusing on nothing, they always went back to the same place. Always leading him back to where he wanted to go, the one place he knew he couldn’t return to. Always leading him back to who he’d lost.

If he was in motion, or working to keep his mind empty, he could figure out where he was in the world. Could always put memories aside, and focus on what might be coming next instead of trying to cast back on where he’d come from.

So he spun around to duck his head under the water just once for good measure, feeling it flow over his scalp without anything in its way, then hauled himself up and out of the tub.

To go with the bathrobes, the place had splendid views. Better yet, the place was posh enough to be current with the new times, which meant a business center, which meant not even having to bother venturing out for an internet café and wasting precious nighttime hours. Walking carefully across the lobby not long after noon the next day, Spike pulled out a chair, typed in the hotel’s password, and was soon surfing his way along the information superhighway.

There was more news to find this time around. Nothing that’d make it onto the telly – smaller pieces that, taken all together from the past few weeks, painted just as bleak a picture as he’d worried. He clicked onward, trying to work his way inwards from the edge, feeling like he was only getting glimpses through a fence. More Council activity, more effort to recruit girls and boys who wanted to be Watchers, support staff, who’d be happy to live inside the Slayer world without being Slayers themselves. Concerns about resources being spread thin. Worries about how to continue partnering with local governments.

Reading through the comments was like hearing shouting from over the fence: mostly tone, very few words he could make out, much less understand, and not something he could stand for all that long. But there was one thread he read carefully: someone from Iowa corroborating the rumors they’d heard from their sister’s friend’s cousin about a sharp drop in demon activity these last few weeks. The cousin was a Slayer, so she ought to know, she’d have to be believed. She’d be certain to know what she meant when she said the Council was working hard to maintain itself as it kept growing in number and scope.

Maybe it was too soon for rumors about Dresden to hit the internet. It always got them eventually. Just usually not first thing. Or maybe Verena and Uta and Dagmar had all kept their mouths shut, and would be keeping them shut, for the sake of how things used to be. 

Meanwhile, finding news in Berlin was never hard. Finding the right news, that took some tricks. But Spike knew all the tricks, and was willing to play them as he needed. And there was enough city left intact from before any Archduke got his head blown off that soon as night crept in, Spike was out on the street playing through the ones he knew. Cities like Berlin drew people in, settled their lives into the streets, let buildings rise and fall around them as the city kept on breathing, kept carrying on a little bit of the spirit that drew them there going as a torch against the passage of time wearing the past away. Keeping enough of the city grounded in the present that it was never all future. They always knew people – passing through, settling down, moving on. Sometimes it was mystical, sometimes it was magical, sometimes it was the ordinary work of always knowing when to put on a smile.

Mabel had been good at it back in the thirties, impeccable during the seventies, and a maven at it almost nine decades into her career of knowing people. She was still in the same HQ through the garden to the teashop, down the spiral staircase and along the mirrored hall – seeing to infinity wasn’t the trick humans thought it was, it got bloody boring halfway through – and having to ask politely at the request to be so kind as to grace her presence. She’d replaced the Thunian bouncer with pair of Joacacean demons, moving up in the world, and Spike knew if she was still here, his name would be enough to get him waved on through. Which she was, making her inner office the last place on the continent he’d likely get to use that trick.

She still looked much the same as when he’d seen her last, with her swearing up and down she did nothing more than oil her scales every time she shed. She poured them each a cup of Darjeeling tea, and he wrapped his hands around it as the room’s humidity settled in behind his ears. The most modern item in the place was the electric kettle that’d boiled right quick without being plugged into anything.

“I heard about your nephew,” she said, bustling about, tidying the clutter, before glancing over at him. “Nephew is how you think of him, right?”

“Easiest way,” Spike said, taking a sip of tea. She always made it too strong, but it wouldn’t behoove him to complain.

“Congratulations on the news about your nephew, then.”

“Thank you.”

“Real shame you had to miss the birth. Beautiful baby girl he’s got. Shame for his father, too, I suppose. You know where he is?” She asked calmly, not giving anything away. “I haven’t heard hide or hair of him since last May.”

“Not since we talked last – would’ve been April, now that I think about it. Could still be north of the border. Could be south of it by now. Could be anywhere, really. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear he’s on some private Wolfram and Hart tropical island retreat they kept around for emergencies.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t worry too much about him. I’m sure he’ll turn up at some point.” She settled at her desk, leaned back in her chair, and ran a hand through her crest. “He’s got the gift of good timing. Can’t teach that. So what brings you to Berlin? I’d think you’d be keeping away from cities.”

“By the time any news gets out to the countryside, it’s deader than I am.” He ran a finger around the edge of the teacup. “And you know me. Always love to hear my name.”

“It’s a good name,” she said. “I’ve always appreciated a solid chosen name. Spike. It’s got thrust to it.” She smiled, showing her teeth. “It’s not a name I’ve heard much _recently,_ if that’s what you’re here for.”

“Some,” he allowed, taking another sip. “It’s not just me I’m here for tonight.” She raised her eyebrows and her crest. “Came in by train,” he explained. “Checkpoints. Papers. Machines that go ping. That new?” He saw her crest go down. “How new?”

“Eh,” she waved a hand in the air, a classic mob movie gesture. “Last two months, give or take.”

“This a popular development, or just avant-garde for the capital?”

“Jeez, you really _have_ been out in the sticks.” She whistled as best she could without lips. “You want out of here safely, get out under people’s noses. I mean _deep_ under. They started this in Norway back in September, they’re working it out through the rest of the EU, I’ve heard tell from solid sources it’s going to be going up around the rest of the country if it works well enough here. You can imagine the stress the German government is under, if they agreed to this sort of project.” Spike almost spat out the last mouthful of tea in laughter. “They’ve found three so far.”

“Three since they started in September?”

“Three since they started in Berlin a week ago. Would be four, but the stunt you pulled last night? Classic.” She clicked her tongue and blew a chef’s kiss. “That sort of thing never gets old. They’re mostly in the transport hubs, though, so finding ways past them, what am I saying, look who I’m talking to here. Steal a car, grab a motorcycle. Horse wouldn’t be too bad, if you can find yourself one of those. There’s always going on foot – there’s been a whole new set of paths lain out since you were here last, you need a map?” He shook his head. “If you say so. Now, they don’t know you’re here, _yet_ , so make it the day after tomorrow at the absolute latest. Anything more than that, hoo boy, not worth thinking about.” She leaned forward in her chair and picked up her tea, and took a sip before she said, “I’m assuming you _do_ want to know where they think you are.”

“You know me well.”

She blinked her second lids, clear membranes sliding sideways across her eyes, as she sipped. “You showed up in Rouen last July. Slonim, Naples, Timișoara, all over the map. Someone on the Council very nearly thought they spotted you in Toulouse, midway through October, he really believed it was you, said he’d know that face anywhere. Not so many these past few weeks, but not for lack of effort. Yeah, the train station? The checkpoints? That’s on you, Spike. That’s all on you.” She took a sip. “Well. You, the Council, let’s not get into hair-splitting. They’ve updated the wanted posters since the fracas with those girls, just an artist’s renditioning and photoshop, of course, but I swear, it’s amazing what they can do with computers nowadays. But of course they know about the hair, so you can’t be thinking about hiding in plain sight much anymore. You’ve done a good job with that, but honestly, I think this better be it for you. Stay in the boonies, keep to the hinterlands. Find a classy bar, have a couple nice drinks, then get the hell out of here. People are _looking.”_ She drained her tea and set the cup and saucer down on the desk.

She always served tea in lovely porcelain work that was completely out of place with the rest of her office. The delicate craftmanship at odds with the messy paperwork and stationery, little paperclips and post-it notes and all manner of things surrounding the space she’d cleared for a teacup from the Imperial Palace out in St. Petersburg. He had no idea how she’d gotten her hands on a full set, better kept and more complete than any museum could lay claim to, and he always appreciated how she made sure people knew exactly what it was she drank her tea from. That for her, it was just a bloody teacup.

She was very good.

“What they’ve been doing, I’m not worried for myself so much. Most of my remaining steady patrons, yeah, I’ve got my concerns. If you were here trying to find other vampires, my advice? Stop. Don’t bother. If there’s any left –”

“And you would know?”

Her crest fluttered and she pressed a hand to her lower chest, over her heart. “You wound me, old friend. I knew they needed to leave before they did. I knew some of them were already gone before they ever thought to pack a suitcase. I knew Slayers were coming after the city’s vampires before any of them was willing to admit something was happening. I told them to get the hell out of here from some misguided sense of professionalism and responsibility, and most of them never got the chance to make good on their escape except as a cloud of dust because they waited too long to leave. They thought, I’ll see a Slayer coming. They thought, I haven’t killed a human since 1984, they’ll leave me be. They thought wrong, and I don’t want to hear you made their mistake. I don’t want to hear you’ve bowed to them, too.”

“Those fledges honestly think bowing’s going to make a difference when someone’s got a stake aimed to their heart?” He shook his head. “There’s only one Slayer I’ll ever bow to, and far as I’ve heard, she’s still in the States.”

“You hear right on that. Bit outside my jurisdiction, the United States. She might’ve boarded a plane sometime in the last, oh, fourteen hours since I last heard about what’s happening over there, but far as I know, that’s where she is.” She shook her head. “But they do, though. And it hurts me to say, really hurts, that I don’t know who started it. No idea who thought it’d be a good idea, but now, everyone’s doing it. Some misguided attempt to appease to Slayers, submit to their authority. Not just fledges, either. All vampires that face Slayers, they bow down. Make themselves look harmless, show them they’ve thrown themselves to their mercy, appeal to their higher natures, honestly, I feel sorry for the bastards because if these girls _had_ a higher nature to appeal to, they wouldn’t be doing this.” She flexed her crest. “Though what I _have_ heard, and this I can’t corroborate, it’s only thirdhand sources but I’m willing to put some trust in them, they know they’re done for, they know there’s no escape, they might as well try for some sense of shame. Look at us making it easy for you, be quick, make it painless, look at me doing so much of the work for you to kill me, look at –” She coughed. “At least, that’s what I hear, anyway.”

“Thirdhand,” Spike echoed.

“You know, you hear it from someone who heard it from someone who was there.”

“I know what that means,” he said, forcing himself to be patient and not let slip it didn’t speak well to the way the world was running if Mabel couldn’t afford first and secondhand anymore. He didn’t like it at all. 

Neither did she, from how she set her shoulders back, but professional as she was, she didn’t allow it into her voice or across her face. “If it makes you feel any better, what happened to you with those three girls brought it out into the open. Before last May, it was rumor – substantial rumor with a lot of evidence behind it to make people suspicious, yes, but still, only rumor. You effectively corroborated everything that night, I mean _everything_ , and even if the Council still isn’t willing to publicly admit to anything yet, you made it into something everyone knows.”

“And of course, you always gotta believe what _everyone_ knows.”

She spat out a laugh. “Of course. Everyone who knows anything knows that.” She rested her chin on a hand. “So was there anything else you wanted to hear about? Hotspots to catch before you left, late-night galleries pandering to the last of the postmodernists?”

He set his cup and saucer down on a tall stack of mismatched papers. There was plenty: who had left in time, who was still safe, how the Council was bearing through this, how long it’d take for them to break. Whether they’d have killed him and Dru on the spot if they’d caught them, or if they’d planned to carry them back to Slayer HQ for him to have one last kiss, or if he ought to be afraid of something far worse than the cessation of existence. “You’ve served me tea and told me what I needed to know that I could only have heard from you. Maybe you didn’t give me what I wanted but that’s never been your style, not in all the years I’ve known you. I’ll thank you, then, for all that you’ve given me tonight.”

“I’m not asking if you’re satisfied. I’m asking if there’s anything else you want to hear.”

“Nothing that’ll do me any good.”

“Knowing when you’ve had enough.” She smiled. “You’ve changed. In a good way.”

“Thank you.”

“If you’re smart enough to know when you’ve had enough, you’re smart enough to know I’m not doing this for the sake of long ago, or as a favor for helping me with those Stasi agents back when last we did business.”

He threw an arm over the back of his chair, letting his lips rise in memory of a beautifully fun night one long-gone June. “What, bringing this all out into the open wasn’t favor enough?”

“Not hardly. So what’ve you got to give to me in return?” She leaned forward. “What’ve you _really_ been doing these last few months?”

“Been keeping moving. Been keeping busy.” She hummed curiously. “Hard to hear much of anything, being so busy trying not to get caught.”

“I’m sure you’ve got something. I could get paid the old way, the _old,_ old way, if you’re that unwilling to part with anything. I could just hear how you got that soul of yours.”

“Well. Let me see,” he said, not letting the flash of anger at her suggestion he’d even _consider_ telling anyone that show on his face. “You heard about those five girls in the pub?” She nodded, and Spike made a show of thinking. “Right, then. Could tell you about the friends I’ve made. Could tell you exactly where I’ve been.” He played it as cool as he could, bringing out every bluffing strategy, every memory of all his poker cheats and honest wins. “Could tell you the little ones are back in Białowieża.”

“That’s not –” She froze, the words catching up to her, and she drew back, body all raised up. “Really? The little ones? Not just baby trolls wandering out into the open where any human can see them, but – the little ones?” Spike nodded, and Mabel dropped her voice to a whisper, even here, even now, unwilling to speak the name loudly lest it be heard so far away. “And the Lisunka?”

“Her, too, far as I hear.”

“From where, pray tell, do you hear all this?”

“A reputable source.”

She stood up from her desk, kicking her chair back across the office. Bracing her hands on the wood, she leaned her body forward, stretching close to Spike as she could with him not moving an inch, staying cool, staying as unmoving as only a corpse couldn’t move. Mabel blinked those transparent eyelids, and dropped her jaw and darted her tongue out, sipping the air. “Reputable?”

“Irrefutable, in this case.” He had one card left to play, and he played it. “Dru tells me she saw it all firsthand. Even told me the Lesní Paní is holding court again.”

“Dru?” He nodded. Mabel blinked, stood as still as a living creature could with all the body’s tiny motions, then collapsed in her chair, the news of one vampire somehow greater than the news of the little ones and their lady out in one of the last of the great old forests. “Dru? Heavens, Spike, _Drusilla_. All the sainted devils in all their blessed hells, if Dru’s with you, you thrice-damned madman, you’re going to be just fine.” She laughed from deep down in her chest, sounding almost like a human, and kept laughing, for the sake of aging memories of how the world used to be, not all that long ago. “Okay, that?” She pointed at him, smile wide. “Was worth this whole evening. Pleasure talking with you, Spike, as usual, as always. And give Drusilla my regards.”

“Happily.” He walked around to her side of the desk to kiss her goodnight, three times in the Russian farewell – maybe laying it on a bit thick, but that was how Mabel always liked it that way, in the end. And Dru always liked to hear old friends still thought of her fondly, as well.

“She still got those little snacks running around all pitter-pat?” Dru asked.

“Some, yeah.” The tanks of rats were still out in her lobby, lovely glossy creatures, all black and white and clever pink hands. “Wasn’t feeling all that hungry, though.”

“Liar.” She batted him gently on the nose.

“All right, I’d have taken a few if she’d offered, but she didn’t, and besides, it wouldn’t have felt right eating so well there without you. And you know she doesn’t like people askin’ to take food home with them.”

Dru hummed in agreement. “Proper table manners are so important.”

“A lost art.” He took her arm in his as they left the tea shop and started walking through the nighttime crowds. It wasn’t tremendously late, not by their or anyone’s standards, and certainly not by the standards of the young Berliners, the kind of city kids that always wanted to go out dancing, no matter how dangerous it was outside, no matter what lurked around the edges of their happiness. Spike and Dru watched a group of girls and boys sing their way down the street, arms over shoulders and hands around waists, the age when being young was the same as being alive. The two of them watched the group pass them by, not even sparing a glance into the darkness. After they’d gone, the two of them went to get a drink. Someplace they could linger around live bodies a while before moving on again.


	5. prays for rain on their lips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Grapevine Fires" by Death Cab for Cutie.

They settled on a bar a couple neighborhoods over from their hotel, nowhere near as rancid or as shining as places they’d once been to that were still serving loyal customers but just as professional as any of them, just as serious about the business of getting drinks to people that wanted to walk the fine line between self-control and self-abuse.

Dru had never had much taste for human food, but she’d always had a weakness for good drinks. There was an ice wine on the place’s menu, the most expensive item it had available, that she drank down like cheap gin and asked them to keep it coming. Spike went with the best whiskey in the place, neat, feeling some sensation of obligation or responsibility that compelled him to pay upfront instead of running a tab and then the two of them running out of there. Maybe it was Mabel’s comments what did it – that he’d changed so much these last few decades, it wouldn’t do for him to run out on the tab like that, the person he’d become.

Besides, since the card went through, wasn’t like he was paying for it himself anyway.

He and Dru clinked their drinks, and were gearing up to settle in, enjoy themselves a bit, before both of them snapped their heads up when a scent they could almost place cut through the room. Nearly familiar, not unknown, too novel to place right away. Dru sniffed, Spike tilted his head to get a whiff, then Dru pointed and Spike turned to see Jackie and the rest of her group walk right past them, through the main bar and back into a private party room. 

“Crash it?” he whispered to Dru.

“For old time’s sake,” she whispered back. “Like Grandmum always loved.” 

“In Darla’s name, then. Hey, Jackie!” Spike cried, practically bounding out of his seat. “Hey there, you lovely lady, fancy seeing you again!”

“Elsa?” She stopped in her tracks. “Vincent? Holy mother of pearl, what the hell is this, some kinda joke?” She grinned and threw her hands up, nearly laughing. “What are you two _doing_ here?”

“Havin’ a drink,” Spike said, raising his glass in salute. Jackie rolled her eyes but kept smiling. “I know, I know. Elsa and I’d been out a while, catchin’ up on old memories, then we saw this place and thought, here’s someplace we’ve never had a drink before, let’s cap off the day with somewhere new.”

“And there I was just thinking how big a world it was,” Jackie mused.

“Never as big as you think,” Dru said coyly.

“Guess it’s not. So how – shoot, my group’s going, I can’t – oh, heck with it, you two wanna come along? Come join us.” She waved them to follow, and follow they did, hardly near the fun of killing the doorman or the bouncer or sailing into the fanciest of shindigs on Darla’s coattails, but the spirit of the trick was close enough Spike felt an echo of that old delight, that pride and power: the world belonged to him and Dru, and there was nowhere they couldn’t go.

The room was dimly lit, no mirrors anywhere, tables and good chairs, no problem making room for two more. Met on the train from Dresden, had a lovely time chatting, didn’t expect this again, top shelf surprise to tell the grandkids about, not staying long, happy to have met again, staying nearby a nice hotel a neighborhood over, what about you lot, the whole group moving as one, not far at all for all of you either.

“We’re thinking of heading back home soon,” Spike lied. “Be nice to settle for a tick, you know? Wake up in my own bed again.” The best lies were built on truthfulness. “After a while, all you want’s your own bed and a breakfast you cooked yourself.”

“Yes. Oh, my goodness, yes,” Ivy breathed. “Just some eggs and some toast, a cup of coffee and some hot sauce, that’s what I’m hungry for. I’ve eaten things I don’t even know how to say right, I’ve eaten things to make me cry and sing, and even after all that, even knowing what else I’ll have, all I want is my own breakfast.”

“Cheers to that,” Spike said, taking a heavy drink. Dru followed suit. And wouldn’t you know it, wouldn’t it suit, that another round of what they had in their glasses came courtesy of Jackie, only living once on the planet and happy to trade money for a good memory, plus a round of shots for everyone. Happy to drink to the end of the night instead of trying to drink each other under the table, God, Spike loved going out drinking with women. “Is it all you dreamed of, though? The grand continental tour?”

“Is this all that I dreamed of?” Patricia ran a finger around her cider glass. “May I be honest?”

“All the better to sing out,” Dru said.

“Well – right. Well. If I’m being honest as I can be, it’s lovely. It’s a dream being here, sometimes. Like walking into a movie, or an old fairy tale. Except.” She sighed, age-faded red hair carrying a hint of the fierceness he knew still lived deep in her blood. “Except – I don’t know why it’s so hard to say this, the whole world knows now, but I wasn’t ever supposed to – my granddaughter, she’s…she’s a Slayer. And…” Patricia stopped, the room silent, everyone’s eyes on her all at once. EF Hutton talked. The whole group had gone all quiet and whipped around to look at her at the same time; the little part of Spike’s brain that wasn’t gibbering in fear was fairly impressed at the impromptu choreography.

“Oh.” Spike gulped down the rest of his whiskey. “That’s…no mean feat, that.”

“You just said she works for an NGO,” Karen said, sounding nearly hurt.

“Which she does,” Patricia pushed back. “That’s what the Council’s always been, technically. Whether it was Watchers or Slayers.”

“You didn’t tell us,” Chloe said, sounding almost hurt. “It’s been weeks. Why didn’t you say earlier?”

“Because I don’t like people thinking I want credit for her,” Patricia explained. “Grace being a Slayer’s not my doing.”

“If I was the grandmother of a Slayer, I’d have that tattooed on my chest,” Chloe mused.

“Oh, you will,” Dru said cheerfully.

“What?” She jerked her head around to stare at Dru, wide-eyed.

“She means you could,” Spike said, gripping Dru’s hand under the table and squeezing it gently. “Patty, you were saying, walking into a fairy tale and all that, but…?”

“Right. Sorry. What I was saying, my granddaughter Grace, she works –”

“Has she met Buffy Summers?” Someone called from down the table.

“Let her speak!” Spike shouted, too wound up to care about drawing the wrong kind of attention.

“No, it’s fine,” Patricia sighed. “Yes, she has. She’s met her a couple of times. Met her three months ago, even. I haven’t, not ever, but what Grace tells me, she’s a very intense person up close. Dedicated, and driven, but she’s also very friendly, too.” Spike murmured in agreement with the rest of the table. Buffy always worked hard to make herself someone easy to like. Didn’t mean most people knew her well. “But what I was saying,” Patricia went on with a nearly Slayer-strong edge to her voice, “is that Grace, who can’t tell me that much since I don’t work for the Council, does say things are getting quieter here than they’ve ever been. And what she says about that, is that it’s not necessarily good. She says, it’s safe here now, and she’s not telling me why it’s safer now than it was ten years ago. It could be that there’s more Slayers in the world so anything that goes bump in the night gets bumped back by a whole squadron, there’s no one girl fighting against everything in the night anymore. And she also says,” she sighed and tossed back her untouched shot. “She also says things are getting harder, now. Not with the, the,” she waved her arms around, “the bumping back part. But inside the Council. She can’t give me details. But she says the Council’s having trouble managing everything. Trouble with coordinating everyone out in the world, all over the world. She says the Council’s trying to figure out the best way to figure out where Slayers need to be, and where they need to go. And I _know_ Grace, I was in the room when she was born, I know what she means by that. I shouldn’t even be saying…”

“It’s all right,” Ivy put a hand on Patricia’s shoulder. “We won’t tell. If you don’t want to say more, it’s all right.”

“I just…” She shook her head. “It’d be easier if – the work they do’s important. We need Slayers in the world the way we need firefighters and paramedics. But you don’t see paramedics driving around trying to get people into car crashes just to save them. I mean…No. I mean, I’m really getting good and drunk right now, I mean _sloshed,_ ignore the last few things I’ve said. Please,” she laughed, a big, heavy, honest laugh. “Let an old woman have her drunken rambles with friends, she doesn’t get to have those _nearly_ enough these days.”

“I’ll allow it,” Jackie called out, raising what was left in her wineglass. Everyone followed suit, cheering, the conversation moving on, the people sitting around Patricia patting her shoulders and asking for more half-truths about the great and mighty Buffy Summers. Spike and Dru kept drinking, matching the women glass for glass, them getting drunk enough to not notice the two of them stayed much closer to sober. Once upon a time, they wouldn’t have dreamed of feasting off everyone in the room: they’d have simply done it, no dreaming required, the sort of thing for which the Slayers would’ve rightly hunted them down.

Now they dreamed of it, trying not to feel the loss of all that freedom and joy once known to them.

At the end of the night, Jackie hugged the two of them good-bye. “This is going to make a great story when I get home,” she giggled.

“I’ve always wanted to be a great story,” Spike said, and kissed her on the cheek, making her blush.

“No need to wish you safe travels,” Dru said, kissing her other cheek, making her gasp and keeping the blush high on her face. “I know you’ll be home safe soon enough.”

“Thank you,” Jackie said, happy and loose and light on her feet, and Spike watched her walk off with the rest of her group out into the night. Probably right back to the hotel, ready to slide into bed and wake up ready for another day of fairy-tale adventuring, being led through grand museums filled with ill-gotten gains and stolen holy relics, through lofty estates built on the backs of generations of laborers that never even had a false promise they might partake in that beauty, manicured and well-tended gardens that pretended to be wild. All tidied up, all made safe, thanks to the tireless work of the Slayer Council, may they long live to fight as one.

Heading back to the hotel would’ve been nice. Gather their things, take a moment, have one more shower and get clean before it all went to pieces. Might’ve tried it, too, if Patty hadn’t been quite so ready to deny everything she’d said. There probably weren’t eyes on the place. But it wasn’t like they had many things to gather, and moreover, heading back now would have them spend the whole of the coming day to come in a single, stationary location. Couldn’t have that.

He and Dru spent the day in the U-Bahn, hiding from the sun deep underground. Not busking, not begging; keeping to themselves in little corners and slumped on benches, becoming invisible by turning themselves into the sort of people nobody saw. Not even putting out a hat or a sign asking for help, saying they’d come far from home, anything to spare, God bless. The two of them watched the people come and go, passing them by, barely speaking to each other and not having much to say.

If what Patty had to say was true, or at least true _enough,_ the Council was shambling around, trying to hold itself together while it rotted from within. The Slayers couldn’t control each other, what was left of the Watchers didn’t know to side with the ones who wanted the old guard returned to their glory or the new world order that promised something wonderful for all, and while all this went on, the ones who wanted to see the world made safe, made secure, made easy, were going about their business of ridding the planet of every single vampire they could find.

And nobody was lifting a finger to stop them.

And who could say if they’d stop what they were doing when they finished off the vampires and found themselves still hungry.

As the day wore on, little of it as it was, Spike noticed Dru getting more and more restless. After sunset, the two of them took Mabel’s advice best they could, riding out of the city beneath everyone’s notice, going all the way out to Hönow. Dru had gotten on the first train car and stood at the very frontmost spot, pressing her face against the glass, trying to glimpse the world as it went by. After a few minutes, Spike got up to join her. After a day underground, the little bit of sky through the windows was a welcome relief. Watching the sky and the city slide along, Spike tried not to think about the last time he and Dru had left Berlin. Far more bodies in their wake, far more vampires still cutting through the city, not a one of them willing to make the choice to do good instead of evil. 

After he and Dru disembarked and picked up a car, it didn’t take long to drive out far enough they could feast on the view – wide, star-filled, a hell of a universe out there. They didn’t stick around to watch it for long, to take in the sight of the stars sliding through the heavens as they’d done a few times across their years together. Tonight was a night to get away from where they’d been, ditching the car somewhere it’d be easily found and grabbing another to drive that much farther away from any place that had the stones to call itself a city. A little town, instead, something that’d let itself sprawl out without growing up, crawling over the landscape like ivy on a wall. But even in the busiest cities, there were always spaces that got lost.

A little town like this, he and Dru were nearly spoiled for choice.

Being back in a factory and finding a little office well hidden from the sun made him nearly nostalgic for those early days in Sunnydale. Dru, as well, which came as a not-unpleasant surprise. 

“There’s still so much hurt, to remember it,” she explained. “To remember it honestly as best I can. I know I can’t – I know how easily it all crashes together, building something new out of all the old pieces. To remember the hurt, our family taught us that. I had to learn, alone, how to remember the rest of it. And remember it honestly. Not to weep for it so long gone. To…” she rolled onto her side, on the cold, dingy floor. The place was so unused, Spike didn’t even smell stale piss, and that meant no scrounging from the homeless and forgotten, no worn mattresses to sleep on, no ratty blankets to even pretend they had a bed. Dru blinked, folding her hands under her head. Spike mirrored the gesture, looking into her eyes.

“To hold the hurt and happiness together, and allow them both their presence,” she said.

“I understand completely, pet.” There weren’t many things he wished he could take back, and plenty he wished he could think on without feeling the pain of them howling down from the very depths of his soul.

Dru reached out, then hesitated, her hand still in the air. When Spike didn’t move, she placed it gently on his face, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb. Her fingers and his face the same temperature, the same feeling, as his own. And his face was all she touched, just where her hand was on him. No less, and no more.

Maybe he and Dru would’ve been dusted in front of a train station’s worth of witnesses, everyone knowing they’d witnessed the last earthly moments of William the Bloody, and he shied away from imagining how Buffy would take such news. Maybe they’d have captured the two of them, given them a sham of a trial but a trial nonetheless, before killing them. Maybe, worst of all, they’d not have dusted them, but taken them instead. Put them somewhere, safe from the world and far away from Slayers, a few vamps kept around in cages as battle spoils and hunting trophies. Relicts and reminders.

He shied away from imagining if Buffy would come to see him, if such a world ever came to pass.

He looked into Dru’s eyes, and felt her hand against his cheek, and pulled all his thoughts to nothing but her hand.

The next evening, he and Dru strolled into town, trying to get a sense of how much they needed to worry. Not so much, because by their usual luck, they’d wound up in a town with a fairly bustling regional airport, meaning anti-vamp measures were probably out here, too – but that meant if they took enough care, all eyes would be on the airport, few on the forests, and none on the two of them. They got a few stares, going out wearing so little in such cold, but none that lingered long enough to be worth any worry.

Two steps forward, one step back, a jump to the left and then a step to the right.

It wasn’t just the factory that reminded Spike of days gone by. That went past Sunnydale, past the last century, to when people built things to last, when people found a place to live and _stayed_ there, uncounted generations going back no farther than six miles afield. The people of the town held themselves comfortably, walking the streets through the cold and the snow to chat each other up over warm drinks in a small room – a time-honored custom through the years they were more than happy to keep alive. Spike knew that tone of voice through the coffee shop, that kind of easy laughing happening all around him and Dru. Time was, he’d laughed like that with Darla and Angelus. Time was, he and Dawn and Buffy had laughed like that. Last spring, they’d laughed like that, the days growing longer and brighter, the air full of springtime promise. The Council had been shaking and quivering, but nothing that wasn’t another spurt of growing pains. Less in the way of chaos agents trying to crack the heavens and more in the way of old friends finally learning their lessons and, if not heading onto the straight and narrow, at least the firmly crooked.

Just before he’d gone into the forest with those girls, he and Buffy had spent the night in her apartment. She’d had a bad day with wrangling ideas about pensions and retirements, seniority and hierarchies, and not even a solid sparring match had burned through her frustrations. She’d ranted as he made her tea, rambled while he’d rubbed her feet, grumbled while he’d reheated some leftovers, and wound down as she ate her meal, until she’d shed the worst of the day, letting it fall from her shoulders and he could have her to himself again. She hadn’t been feeling it that night, and while he’d wanted, he hadn’t pressed, so they’d cuddled close on her couch and finally got around to watching _Happy-Go-Lucky_. They’d laughed, enjoyed good wine in coffee mugs because all her glasses were in the dishwasher, gone to bed and slept together, and the next day, leaving his coat in her apartment to give the right impression, he’d boarded a sunproofed jet to fly to Poland to deal with that rogue Eldrazi.

There was a couple sitting in a far corner of the place, not young, not old, with the look of having been with each other most of their lives, and of knowing they’d spend the rest of their time on Earth together and completely at peace with that. Welcoming it, even. Talking too quiet to make out through the hubbub, it was very much the look of a conversation about nothing in particular. Small laughs, little movements of their shoulders, their souls working as one to –

“You’ll dance again one day,” Dru said, pulling him out of his reverie. “After the sun comes back and the seas rush on, it hasn’t been forgotten. Your dear heart waits, waits for her prince, thorns stuck into her flesh and the vines growing tight around her, but she’ll break free, chop them to bits, burn what’s left. Fecund soil from the worst of the growth, burning it to make rich ash and start anew.” She focused on her drink, a mulled wine that warmed their hands and tongues and hopefully leave their mouths a little less hungry for their real food. She picked it up, put it down, picked it up again, and took a sip, then pulled a face. “Still too hot.” She tapped a finger against the top of her tongue. “Pah.”

“They do serve it hot, don’t they,” Spike said, blowing on his own mug to cool it a bit more.

The next night, they woke up wrapped in scavenged blankets, wrapped around each other for the comfort of holding and being held, Dru nuzzling Spike’s hair. Enough to nuzzle, now, not just catch. He almost expected to find icicles in it or spot frost in Dru’s, now all the way down to her chin.

What they found, instead, was a visit to the local tourist center was well within their limits, and the lady behind the desk so eager to shoo them out of there just before closing time, she barely paid them any attention. A few clipped responses, a couple of gentle answers, and they were gone again, waved off into the night.

While the place was German to its core, it wasn’t a town with late-night butcher shops. There wasn’t anything in the way of a well-established demonic presence, either. Not even something new from the last few years as humans willingly admitted they weren’t truly alone and those who’d been alongside them this whole time began asking politely if they might join in the fun of paying taxes and attending city council meetings. It was human, up and down and front and back, all the way through. 

Spike knew there weren’t any blood banks or local hospitals that would’ve been left unguarded. But that didn’t mean he and Dru had to kill to eat. Where they were going, what they wanted to do, they’d need to eat well. And there were ways to get that done.

The big mountain of a beast of burden barely blinked after he and Dru walked into her stall, shaking her tail and flicking her ears, then letting her head droop as she went back to dozing under her blanket.

He’d never cared much for horse, the thin grassy, grainy tang in the blood that wasn’t ever rich enough to carry any depth, but it was true what they said about hunger being the best sauce. She was warm under his hands, warmer than humans got, and she slept on as he pulled a little stool over to better stand and reach her neck, brushing her mane back from behind her ears.

As he slid his fangs into her neck, gentle as you please, her eyes shot open and she stiffened, stomped a hoof and tried to shake him away. He latched on in unthinking instinct, and she whinnied, almost in pain. But Dru kept stroking her snout and petting her cheeks, whispering gently to her. The horse snorted out a great plume of steam against the night, holding her body steady as Dru calmed her and Spike drank from her. She relaxed when he stopped, and Dru kept stroking that great big snout, letting whatever sounds that found their way to her tongue fall out her mouth, until she and Spike switched places.

The horse’s eyes were enormous, even for her species. Spike recalled hearing somewhere they had the largest eyes of anything on land – anything from the ordinary mortal realm, at least – and staring into hers tonight, he believed it wholeheartedly. He could see the entire barn in her eye in the dim light, the room reflected and distorted in her iris and swallowed by her pupil. Spike could make out the slatted roof, the heavy beams, the doors and windows, everything she could see as though he wasn’t there. She blinked slowly, whinnied out another little sound of pain as he stroked her snout and tried to soothe her. He didn’t remember much in the ways of dressage, and had been thrilled to leave the saddle behind with the internal combustion engine, but he’d always remembered how to calm a horse down, how to get it to trust him that he meant it no harm.

And he didn’t. He honestly didn’t want to see this beautiful mountain die tonight. Too much attention, for one, and it’d be a shame, besides.

As Dru drank her down, the horse’s eyes started to glaze over. She blinked, fluttering her eyelashes, and Spike kept petting her as her sides twitched and her ears flattened. He leaned in close, whispering the best endearments he could think of, staring into that giant, beautiful eye, as she looked right back at him. She blinked again, and when she opened her eye, the room slowly appearing in reflection, Spike leaned forward, pressing his face to her neck and breathing in that grassy, beasty scent, better in his nose than on his tongue, until Dru’d had her fill of her, too.

Full up, but far from sated, they left as carefully as they knew how. They closed the door behind them and, instead of cutting through the fields to get to the forest, kept to the roads until they could turn off and head into the trees.

As they walked, the cold gnawed at their skin, and as it started to fall, the snow chewed on their fingers, and soon enough, it all passed right through them without staying. Their bodies weren’t shivering to keep themselves a steady temperature, and they weren’t trying to make enough heat to warm up the rest of the universe. It didn’t feel bad to feel so cold. It didn’t feel like much of anything. Spike took in a deep breath, the heat from the horse already nearly gone, and let the chilly air fill his lungs slowly, and he let it out just as gently. It was cold enough it almost burned, like the drag on a beautiful cigarette. A small creature comfort he’d savor, once he had the ways and means again.

This far away from cities and all their humming electric lights, with the air so cold and still, the stars came through stronger than he’d seen in years. Strong and clear, the stars and planets circling around, and far beneath those and just as bright, the quiet, steady blinking of modern satellites. With the moon shining heavy, it was bright enough to read the fine print by, everything catching off the snow and coming back just as strong, dazzlingly bright. When they couldn’t hear the road anymore, they stopped at the first little clearing they came to, where Dru staring up at the sky with the same wonderous joy on her face she always wore when she got a good view of the heavens. Bright enough they could almost pretend it was day, the two of them took their fill of the stars, silently drinking in the quiet and the distance and the solitude, before Spike gently took her arm and they kept going.

One footstep after another, in a forest that creaked and rustled and whimpered in the wind and the dark, putting distance between themselves and anyone what might want to see them dusted. When morning came, they pitched the tent, and then zipped themselves up in sleeping bags, the two layers of fabric enough to keep them safe, but it wasn’t the same as sleeping on a bed, or even a building with a floor. Far less comfortable, for one.

Dru rolled her eyes as they packed up the tent. “And for all these years you called _me_ princess.”

Spike looked at Dru, standing there in the moonlight through the trees with her backpack high on her shoulders like someone ready to walk the full run of the PCT, clothes in need of a wash, a haughty look on her face to do the greatest of queens worthy completely at odds with their surroundings and circumstances, and when he started laughing, she joined in.

“No reason a princess can’t want for comfort,” he said after he’d finished, tightening the straps across his stomach. “Or a prince, for that matter.”

“Especially one in exile,” she replied, and began walking before he could say anything in response. Just as well: it took him nearly ten minutes to think of something suitable, and by then, the moment had long passed.

It’d snowed that day, leaving the sky between the empty trees sharp and hard. Not gentle, never gentle; not out here and not like this. Not unless they had the ways and means to leave the cold, instead of letting themselves become part of it. Using it to hide themselves, stay far out of sight, keep away from the small paved roads crisscrossing through the forest and avoiding the little cabins and inns that popped up every now and again where people thought they’d make themselves cozy out in the wilderness. It was easy to give them a wide berth, turn back and keep to the untamed wild. It was easier to stop a little while, stare out through the trees at the reminder of what had once been theirs, marvel at the fragility of all that kept the people inside those buildings safe.

One night when Dru went to stare into one of those inns, getting up as close as they usually dared, the light from the windows cast shadows across the snowbanks and the sounds of the people inside were loud enough to hear through all the walls and wind. When the lights went out, and it’d been quiet a spell, Dru walked right to a window, dropping her pack and peering inside, and stepped aside that Spike might drop his pack a moment and peer inside alongside her.

What he wanted to think was the shapes in the bed were that couple from the corner from that one café. That they’d found themselves a nice, warm bed inside a big, cold forest, and were holding each other under the covers to make the darkness and the winter that much brighter and that much easier. A story to tell himself to make the short days pass more easily.

Then Dru tapped on the window.

“Dru!” Spike hissed.

She shook her head, snowflakes falling from her to-her-shoulders hair, and tapped again. “Coming from the ocean,” she whispered. “Up like the sirens, singing such promises, false promises of freedom, beautiful songs and things gone lost and the pain of the memories, I can hear him, nasty brute, nasty cheating brute, wake up, wake up!” She shouted, pounding the glass. “Wake up! It’s not your house!” Inside, they were waking, and Spike sped after Dru as she ran around the house to rattle the doorknob. She hissed, and slammed her shoulder against the wood. “Let us in!” She shouted, pounding her fist.

Spike could hear the two people inside waking, and talking, their voices hard and frightened. “They got it, pet!” He grabbed Dru’s wrists from behind. “They’re up now, you’ve gone and roused them, why you want to get inside so bad?”

“It’s not their house! Isn’t _safe_ for them, not tonight, I can see them streaked and painted on all the walls – ah!” She twisted away and made another run for the door, stumbling in when the door opened just as she was about to hit, tackling the man who’d had a terrible case of bad timing. Spike was right behind her, blinking his eyes against the sudden flaring of electric lights, throwing a hand over his face and pulling it down slowly to blink at the sight of a woman brandishing a chair at him like a would-be late-night wrestler, face grimly determined and shoulders held firm, while Dru scrambled up off a man trying desperately to not let on how much he was equally excited and terrified to have had a woman beautiful as Dru come running in out of the night and fall atop him, especially not with his lady already present. A lady who still had the wooden chair brandished at him. Best weapon in the room against vampires and she’d gone right for it.

“Uh – hi,” Spike offered.

She shouted something in German. 

“Sounds about right,” Spike told her, and looked at Dru. “It’s just the two of us, ducks, let’s be –” She wasn’t looking at him, she was looking past him, and a half-step to the side and turning around to see a new face peeking inside the cabin from out in the cold night. They were smiling, eyes all golden.

“Think we can help you?” Spike asked.

“What a surprise,” the vampire said, stepping into the light, a blast of cold following after. The two humans shivered, and Spike and Dru stayed still. “What a _superb_ surprise,” he hissed through his fangs, German inflection not cut a bit by any of his sharp teeth. “I hadn’t planned on sharing tonight. But there’s enough here all three of us don’t need to go hungry. How nice. How _nice_ to have to share.”

“Yeah, won’t be happening, Fritzie,” Spike replied. He held his stance, assumed the posture. “These two, one for her an’ one for me, you run along an’ find yourself another meal.” He didn’t so much as glance at Dru as he heard her get to her feet, angrily huffing out a breath. “There’s bodies aplenty here.” The two people spoke enough English to get more than just the gist of _there’s three vampires here_ ; he could smell the fear atop the cold. “Go on,” he waved towards the door, “go find someone else to eat.”

“No,” he said, teeth going blunt, eyes going brown. “No, I think…I think I want these two more, now.” He nodded. “I saw them today. Saw them out there, when I was hiding, stomping through the trees near me, didn’t _see_ me, but I saw them, and I thought, why not, why not have a nice hunt tonight, hasn’t it been so long since you’ve had a good hunt?” He kept smiling, pulling himself up to his full height, nearly Angel’s breadth across his chest. “Hasn’t it been too long since any of us have had a hunt?”

“Stalking, tracking, trailing, that’s hardly any fun if there’s not even a mass slaughter at the end,” Dru sneered. “Saw you, just now, saw the games you like, by the ocean or in the forest, always playing the same game, thinking yourself so clever. Never happy in the least when no one wants to play along.” She clicked her tongue. “No playing here. No more playing for you.”

The vampire looked back and forth between Dru and Spike and the humans, huddled together for warmth, then searched Spike’s face. There was always a rush of soulful pride when the moment came that they recognized exactly who they were looking at. Spike allowed himself a smile.

The two of them roared as the other one leapt and Spike launched himself through the air, tackling him and sending them both rolling out into the snow. A shout, a battle-cry, and he got his legs beneath him and threw Spike off; rolling with it, up to his feet, other lights coming on and Spike didn’t give a toss who saw them as he got his fists up.

“Mostly fight humans, do you?” Spike goaded. “Soft, weak little humans, one of those vamps that loves to play with your food, no taste in that, I swear, no taste at all.”

“Come on,” the other vampire crooned, struggling to steady himself, “come on, there’s enough humans here we can have our fill tonight, let’s not fight the three of us, there’s so few of us here anymore, no reason to fight at all.”

“Keep playin’ like this, whose fault is _that?”_ Spike hissed, feinting, jabbing, grabbing his arm as he lunged forward and twisting him around, elbow to his back and twisting him back for a knee to the groin and fist to the face. He snarled and wiped his chin, tried again and got another punch for his troubles; trying to goad him again, almost teasing with his punches, and Spike allowed him two before putting a stop to it. “Whose fault is it, givin’ Slayers a _reason?”_ He shouted as he punched. “You eat a lotta people these days?” Face, throat, solar plexus, one after another, he had the vampire down on the ground and pinned there, not going anywhere. “Knowin’ what’s going on, you _still_ eat people these days?” he asked again, angrier this time.

The vampire laughed around a broken fang. “All I can manage. All I can catch. Always been that way, always been like that for us, why change things now? Just because we’re hunted? No reason to stop.”

“We’re in a new world here, mate,” Spike said. He could hear all the doors opening, all the footsteps muffled in snow, and snarled at the vampire beneath him. “It’s not a more loving world, now, it’s a stronger world, and it’s always a world to die in.”

“You’ll really kill me?” The vampire managed a little smile. “You won’t send me on my way with a warning, let me go if I promise never to do this again? Slayer of Slayers, you’ll track me down if I do, that’s how you go, I’ll be safe, I’ll be good.”

“No,” Spike said, “you won’t.” And he caught the wooden stake that Dru threw to him and struck it to the vampire’s heart. He gasped as he dusted, and Spike fell down into the snow, knees-first.

He got to his feet. Dru stood at the edge of the light, inching away. All the humans, all fifteen of them, including the two who’d been picked for tonight’s main course, a man and a woman who weren’t old and weren’t young and had been drinking mulled wine last time he’d seen them, the world did love to rhyme and echo. They gathered around in coats thrown over pajamas and nightgowns, staring at him, gazing in fear and wonder at the vampire standing out in the snow, at the marvel of one of them killing another of their kind, at the sight of such a rare beast.

Spike barred his fangs and snarled, and they pulled back, exactly as afraid as they should have been. He got a glimpse of Dru, backing away into the shadows.

“All right!” He shouted in English, to make his point. “All right, here’s what it is, you know me, the whole world bloody well knows me, Spike, Slayer of Slayers, you saw me, you call up the Council, tell them where you last saw me!” He cackled, laughing at the bright, sharp heavens, spinning around, throwing his arms out wide, putting on the best show he knew how. “Doin’ their work for them, that’s what the soul’s good for, knowin’ right from bloody wrong, saving humans ’stead of havin’ my fill, me and me alone! Thank all the stars up in heaven and all the nasties down on earth it’s me here tonight, savin’ every last one of you, you’re not in houses here, you gotta keep yourself safe, big good Spike here won’t always be around to save you.” He smiled, he waved, he put his face back and smiled with ordinary human teeth, and turned and sprinted out into the woods.

It took him five minutes’ hard run to catch up to Dru, who’d grabbed their packs as she’d gone. Once his was secured on his back, they took off again, tearing through the snow and past the trees, over frozen lakes under the starlight that cracked underneath where their feet landed and shattered behind them as they hit the far shore, footpaths and dirt roads and paved streets and more trees, more snow, more distance between them and the last place anyone saw them, running until the sun was nearly up and they burrowed deep into a snowbank, wrapping themselves tight and hoping that would be enough to keep themselves safe.

When they dug themselves out the next evening, early as they dared, they didn’t need to walk far to find they’d ran all the way to Poland.

They waited four days to find a farm. Sheep, this time; docile little beasts, plenty to spare, one for him and one for Dru and fifty-nine left over in case they wanted seconds. They drank gently, propping them up on their bums and holding them like they’d be getting sheared, the way Spike saw someone do it on the telly once. It did the trick, calming them down, and he and Dru could drink slowly from a nice rich vein. The animals didn’t taste much better than they smelled, but the two of them left the barn with full stomachs, and that was all they’d wanted.

Another sheep farm three nights’ walk away was another filling meal, and finally, bellies nice and warm, they started flirting with civilization again. Finding it’d been eight weeks since Berlin and the new year had come and gone didn’t take much doing, and it wasn’t as much of a blow as Spike had thought it’d be. Dru helped with that, pointing out that days came and went, and the world spun on its axis to keep turning the seasons, but things like New Year’s Day were entirely part and parcel of civilization, and as vampires, such conventions were strictly optional.

“The candles burn down, but the smoke lingers,” she explained.

“Fair point,” he admitted.

Learning which day of the week tomorrow would be was easy next to getting a good grasp on what’d really been happening. But there were ways. Vamps didn’t sweat, but weeks hiding in forests would have dirt lingering on anyone, which meant the two of them absolutely reeked for showers – its own kind of effective urban camouflage. Nobody bothered to do more than glance at him, utterly redolent, as he stood at the newsstand flicking through magazines and newspapers. Nobody told him to shove off unless he paid for something, and no one bothered to pay Dru any mind as she openly watched everyone, nothing more than a hat or a pair of sunglasses concealing their faces.

All those arguments with Harris about Clark Kent and Superman, proven right by living through them.

The pickings at the place were slim, but enough that when he plunked himself down in an internet café the next night, he knew what to look for. The Council was in damage control mode, working hard to keep everything from the center outward working while the edges were crawling back frayed and torn, spinning stories left and right about what they were working on, the good they were doing, disavowing the slanderous notions and vicious libel flung at them from all corners. They were the good guys, the white hats, the ones out fighting to make sure the world saw another day.

All from mouthpieces, all from press releases and statements, all from representatives who kept toeing the party line. Not a single honest, genuine word across any of the pieces he found. But of course there wouldn’t be. Anyone capable of saying such things would be busy putting in the work of making those things come to pass, of those things becoming real and not just staying empty promises. It wasn’t bad there wasn’t anything of honest substance, but it wasn’t good, either. More of the same, all over again.

The reports and interviews of his startling appearance didn’t change much, either – wouldn’t have been all that long ago that by now, he’d have killed an entire nest that managed to sneak its way through the trees and was terrorizing the poor innocent tourists. The world moved on, things got written down right the first time, always just the one vampire. Maybe he should be glad for that. What he was honestly, genuinely glad for was all the people coming forward claiming to have seen him. Like Mabel had said: he was all over the place, cavorting his way across the continent, people sometimes honestly recalling his face and more often, them simply wishing they had. The gladness came that there wasn’t a single mention among the pieces of him traveling with anyone, everyone thinking he was doing this alone, thank Christ people thought that he was alone.

Thank Christ people thought he was alone, and let them be damned to the lowest circle of Hell for stooping so low and demanding someone with no part in anything happening tell them what she thought of all this. No comment was all they got, barely worth a mention, and the digital red top spent over a thousand words trying to figure out what Dawn meant by _no comment._

The would-be reporter had sprung himself on Dawn, her and the boy she was dating – both his mother and older sister Called up with the rest of the world’s remaining Potentials, a statistical anomaly Giles had marveled over while the two of them had gotten down to the business of figuring out they liked each other. The photos of Dawn and Noah out on an honest-to-God _date_ like normal people nearly broke him. Two wonderfully ordinary humans going about their wonderfully ordinary business for what should have been one wonderfully ordinary evening away from the world they spent so much time in. And this wanker had gone and ruined what they’d probably spent weeks planning for, thinking they’d have a few moments to themselves to just be happy and enjoy each other’s company.

He didn’t bother logging off, just stepped away from the computer and stalked his way back to the room before sunrise came. Tried to let the sounds of the house and the people around them wash out the worst of the anger and sadness, and the regret he couldn’t even tell Dawn how sorry he was, or make her laugh with his promise to eat the paparazzo, next time he came around.

He and Dru had found themselves a squat, the sort of place she’d always turned her nose at in the past – it was one thing to take over an empty factory, another entirely to _share_ the bloody place with anyone she herself hadn’t personally approved of and invited. But the kids there had wrenched their way into the city’s pipes, and while the water was cold, and there wasn’t much of it, there was enough to get clean an old-fashioned way. Two buckets, a bar of soap, a few clean washcloths, and someone to help when it came time to see to really scrubbing out the hair, Spike didn’t know what anyone else in the squat was complaining about.

“Too used to softness. Easy luxury,” Dru said, as he worked his fingers through her hair. “Not for wanting or preference. It’s been made too hard to remember other ways to be.”

“Easy to learn, though,” Spike mused. Their last good meals had gone a long way for them both: her hair was teasing her shoulders and his was tickling his ears. Frustrating, at times, and tempting to ask one of the squat kids if he could borrow her clippers and shave it back down, but if Dru wasn’t cutting hers anymore, it didn’t seem quite right to cut his again. That, and there was some sense in triumph in having it as an ongoing testament to how long he’d been away. More than the days and weeks of utter loneliness: something he could feel under his hands. Something he could touch.

They kept to themselves long enough to get their bearings again, which was easy – a man and woman together, people tended to give them some breathing room, not that they breathed, and with them looking a bit older than most of the kids there, no reason to let them know how _much_ older, everyone automatically gave them some berth. The building the kids had gotten their hands on was a lovely one, from a good few decades back, solid construction underneath the peeling paint and melting windows. Being anywhere near people was a risk, but for the sake of getting clean and sleeping indoors, they could manage a couple of weeks of high caution. Winter was still here, gripping the world tight, and it was easier to bear through cold behind four walls.

It wasn’t a sight Spike knew all that well. Back in New York, he’d breezed through the squats down in the East Village, out along the Bowery, even slept in them a few times if he lost track of the night, but never stayed, not with Dru having her pick of the city’s luxury brownstones and apartments. Half the kids had been pathetic, strung-out junkies of one form or another that were just living to their next fix, the other half scared little punks, scuttling around trying to grow strong enough armor or develop deadly enough poison they wouldn’t get eaten by the world. Now, everyone around them was a scared little kid, not a whiff of desperation or rebellion to any of them. Just fears of being eaten, without any thought to armor or poison that’d keep themselves safe from the jaws of the hungry world.

On some level, it beat the junkies. However easy a meal they’d been, however good it’d been to eat reliably back then – there hadn’t been any glory or fun in eating them. Just the pleasure of not going hungry. He hadn’t bothered to justify it, and Dru hadn’t cared, either. They’d been hungry, and those junkies had been there for them to eat. It’d been exactly that simple.

On another, he missed the spirit of those little crusty punks, the screaming little kids who knew the softer they were, the deadlier their poisons had to be.

Sometimes it was nice not having a reminder of the sort of person he’d used to be.

What Spike had never seen back then, not once in all his years in New York, was demons in the mix. He’d known a few young demons living much the same way as those human kids, runaways and addicts taking over empty, lost buildings as a makeshift, scared little family. Back then, humans and demons kept their distance from one another; the first demon humans saw was usually their last. He’d taken pride in making that the case for a lot of them. Show them the truth of the world before taking them from it. At the time, it’d seemed appropriate.

But the world moved on, and a small town in Poland wasn’t New York City, and when one came into the squat one night, Spike and Dru smelled her coming through the front door from two floors up.

“Anaba,” Dru murmured in wonder. “Far from home, she is.”

“Think we ought to say hello, or just be on our way?”

She considered for a moment. “Make it worth the risk.”

So Spike headed out under the pretense of not giving a bloody toss what anyone thought about what he was doing, sniffed his way to her room, and planted himself in the doorway. She glanced up from the pile of blankets she was arranging into a suitable nest, snuffling her snout, and her ears smacked flat against her head.

“Not here to eat you,” he said in Fyarl. “Not even here to make friends. Just curious what’s brought you here. Name’s Vincent. What’s yours?”

“Jamira,” she said, her accent suitably tripping. She looked nearly as tall as Angel, making her short by her people’s reckoning. “I’m – I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“I’d remember meeting an Anaba so far from her home,” he said, deliberately stepping inside her room. “I know you can smell the death on me. We both know humans don’t have a sense of smell. Appreciate it deeply if you’d not say.”

“I won’t,” she said, shaking her head, keeping her voice steady.

“Many thanks. It’s the Slayers that’ve got me here,” he told her truthfully. “Got me and my lady on the run. Us together, hiding from the ones who’d see us fall to dust. Far as I know, nobody in the world wants to see an Anaba cut to pieces. So tell me, what’s got you here?”

“I was – do you speak Anaban? Polish?” He shook his head. “Spanish?”

“I speak Spanish well enough,” he told her in Spanish.

“Oh, thank Kindeya, I hate speaking Fyarl, I can’t ever get the high vowels right, the way they – sorry. My apologies. Yes. What’s got me here is I needed a place to sleep, and I was cold and tired, and Ella met me at a local coffee shop and invited me to come along with her.”

“Ella?” Spike leaned against the wall. She was the closest thing to a head honcho the place had going for it. “Good for her, offering you a place.” He crossed his arms, giving her a very small smile, as she sunk down into the blankets.

“She’s very kind, isn’t she?” Jamira said in a quiet rumble. “She told me she’d be happy to see me stay here. She promised, I’d be safe here, perhaps not comfortable, but safe, and after the trouble I had in getting here – I simply wanted to see a little of the world. Walk among all the people in it, since that’s what’s being promised.”

“Promised by those who’d see me fall to dust.”

“That’s true,” she said carefully. “But I’ll not get into such matters at this moment. I’ll say, Ella seemed to think me a marvel and a wonder and something to talk about, like if she met Mel Gibson. I’ll say, I wanted a place to sleep indoors.” She flicked her ears dismissively. “A place indoors that isn’t a barn. I’ll take being a wonder in exchange for the trappings of civilization.”

“I imagine not hiding’s very nice,” Spike tossed out.

She smoothed out her skirt over her knees, the yellow fabric neatly complimenting her fur. “I admit my parents had their objections against my traveling. We carry long memories, us Anabas, though none of us carries one as long as yours, I imagine.” Spike smiled honestly and shook his head. She huffed out a laugh. “Though – isn’t that what she said?”

Spike laughed, harder than the joke deserved, but more for the sake of having a joke to laugh at. Jamira nodded, smiling. “I also imagine, if you’re keeping yourself safe from Slayers, you’ve been around a good while, enough to remember how bad it was before 2005. Not so long ago.”

“Quite,” he allowed.

“I’ve been traveling for nearly six months. I’ll be heading back home in spring, I think. Another two months, perhaps three, I’ll see when I’m ready. Not because I’m running out of money, not for any fears of what might befall me, but to prove to my family we _can_ travel now. Should we want to. I want to show them, by leaving and returning, the world’s been made safe. Perhaps not for – there’s no good way for me to say your kind, but we both understand what’s meant by that.” He nodded. She lifted her ears up. “And I think we both understand what’s meant when I say, good luck to you, and good luck to the Slayers.”

“I do, Jamira,” Spike said. “I’ve no hard feelings hearing you say that.”

“Might – might I meet your lady?” she asked gently, ears laying back slowly. “It’s simply that it’s been a long while since – well. Being alone among humans for so long. Or very nearly alone, so much of the time. You understand.”

“I do,” he said. “So long as I’m allowed to be a Frank Sinatra.” He smiled. “Or should I say a George Clooney?”

She laughed at that. “I am familiar with the works of Frank Sinatra.” She shifted to sit tailor-style on her blanket nest. “I would quite enjoy meeting her. I assume she’s to be Mia Farrow?”

“Mia Farrow could only _dream_ of being Elsa,” Spike told her. “I’ll go see if she’s amenable. If not, no hard feelings, I hope.”

“None at all. My regards to her, in any case.”

Spike closed her door behind him and went back upstairs to his and Dru’s room.

“Don’t go killing her in her sleep,” Spike told her. “She’s a good kid, got a good head on her shoulders. Don’t go proving her parents right on thinkin’ she can’t be out in the world.”

Dru leaned back, bracing herself against her hands. “Since you’ve asked so nicely.” She rocked back and forth, humming. “Since you’ve set yourself into practicalities, with no reason to be sentimental over reminders of lost friends.”

He glared. Bloody psychics. She stuck her tongue out at him, and he threw her two fingers. “No need for such harsh language,” she chastised. “Not when all I’m after is honesty.”

“All right, yeah, she _does_ , a bit. Satisfied?”

“Reasonably so.”

Reasonably enough, that Dru was willing to walk down a couple flights of stairs, brave the possibility that came with potential exposure in common areas, to another little safe zone, knocking on Jamira’s door and being invited in. At first, there wasn’t much to talk about – there was only so much to share about the work needed to travel and stay safe with so many eyes and ears tuned into every little movement, all the chances of making one bad point of contact, when that work wasn’t something everyone in the conversation had in common. Then Jamira asked about the best, most surprising thing they’d seen of late, the thing from the last six months they’d be talking about for the next six years, and Dru lit up.

“You!” she exclaimed, nearly knocking Jamira backwards, no mean feat while everyone was sitting down. “Seeing you out, seeing what you _being_ out means for all those I know are still yet hiding, still yet skulking and creeping among the shadows. Vincent and I, it can’t happen for us, not with what we’ve done and who we are and _what_ we are, he and I. But to look at you and see, really _see_ what the world has in store that no one yet dreamed of believing, something so new, so grand, oh, seeing you is _wonderful.”_ She crawled forward on her hands and knees, eyes wide open, shimmying her shoulders while on all fours, no mean feat. “I’ll find new friends once this is all over, once I know Vincent will be safe again, I’ll find new friends and tell them of the visions the beautiful Anaba gave to me.” She reached out, then stopped, hand in the air. “Forgive me. Should have asked. If it’s not allowed, my apologies.”

Jamira slowly lifted her ears up, raising an index finger from a closed fist. “Just this once.” She looked at Spike. “If you’d like.”

Would he like to touch a warm, living creature without any thought for food, only the connection of bodies in space, heavens below and hells above, of course he did, and he allowed himself a gentle moment of indulgence. There was a reason all the high-up muckety-mucks had gone for Anaba nannies as much as they had for bodyguards all those centuries: they were wonderfully soft-pelted. Jamira grunted low in her throat, happy when Spike found a certain spot behind her ears and closing her eyes as Dru stroked down her neck. Very, very firmly down her neck.

“I think she’s had enough,” he said in Spanish, to make sure both women understood.

Dru’s hand stilled a moment before she pulled it back.

“It was a pleasure meeting you,” she said as a farewell, before they headed back to their room, and were on their way again before the night was through. They didn’t look back at the place they were leaving, at the ramshackle four-story building tucked into the edge of a courtyard, at the window out onto the street where a grand young lady was sleeping inside a nest of blankets, her very presence demanding the people around her acknowledge how much the world had changed.


	6. I won't know how much I've lost until I've gone away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Introduction" by Voxtrot.

The nights were getting shorter, little by little. At least the cold was firmly and happily gripping the world tight in its fists. When it snowed in Sardinia and levees broke across France, it gave people something more immediate to focus and talk about. It made hiding a little bit easier, when the two of them could walk a little more freely without thought of anyone coming after them in all the cold. Nobody poking through abandoned buildings or empty barns, no one out for a nighttime drive to force them off the road, letting them walk easily under the sharp winter sky.

There was something very clean about the world when it got so cold.

Something nice, too, about how big it made the world. Too risky to steal a car or catch a bus, no reason to think train stations would be safe, wrong time of year to get anywhere on a bicycle, no way was he risking a motorcycle on ice like this, horses would be more trouble than they’d be worth – footsteps, one after another, was how they were getting around. How they were heading someplace new every night to sleep out the day, if they weren’t spending the nights hiding from peeping eyes, wary shepherds, suspicious all-night laundromat managers. Every step took them someplace new and cut the world to its proper size again. He remembered being young, being _alive_ , and how grand and wonderful it’d seemed to have the whole world mapped out and still have to cross so much distance, and take so many days, to travel from one part of it to another. Now, with the right planes, it was four hours from California to the Cotswolds. Not even Verne had dreamed of four hours from one side of the planet to another. The world had outgrown little children’s stories and stepped into a fantastic everyday no one could have prepared for.

Buffy did have that effect. In a fight between Buffy and the world, he knew which side he’d back.

He and Dru kept to the forests and fields as much as they could, zigzagging and crisscrossing and tromping across the countryside with no rhyme or reason other than to keep out of sight as best they could. They walked through snowfalls, and hunkered through ice storms, and finally found an empty farmhouse, far removed from any road, long forgotten but built strong enough to stand alone and untouched for what smelled like years, for them to rest up and wait out the rest of winter.

With such a winter, it wasn’t a surprise springtime took so long to arrive. Past the solstice, snow melting, it came with birds: the high scrawling cries of owlets hungry for their dinner, susurrations of murmurations of starlings at dusk, geese announcing their place in all things as they began flying home. Dru’s hair was near her shoulder blades, and his was enough to wrap around his fingers. He’d never let it curl like this, either bleaching it or slicking it back or using the latest product of the day to tame it down and style it back up best he could.

There was only one thing for it, in the warming days and shortening nights.

They found themselves another photobooth.

It took the better part of a fortnight, moving carefully through the countryside, holding out thumbs on the sides of roads that went to cities, eventually coming across an out-of-the-way train station with a dusty booth far to the back, where they fed a few coins into the slot.

Dru smiled at her portraits, rubbing her thumbs over her lips and cheeks. Spike stared at his, not quite recognizing the face with everything framing it. Parts of it he knew: the eyes, the nose, the scar. The trouble was in putting it all together.

With spring came lambing season, reseeding fields, turning the land over to use it again. Nothing left fallow, nothing left untouched. Warmth seeped into the two of them gradually, the worst of the winter chill carried down deep inside his soul until one evening, he woke up in a tent inside an empty room in an old factory crumbling in the breezes and realized he wasn’t cold anymore.

Dru was standing out in a would-be meadow, watching the last of the day’s light disappear over the horizon.

“You doin’ all right, ducks?” He asked.

“I’m doing happily enough,” she said, not turning his way. “Not so much, the rest of them. All restless, all too ready to crack themselves apart, none of them prepared for the body to burn.” She nodded. “Burn, and cinder, and grow anew. Grow better, grow stronger, grow for the sake of what will come instead of what used to be.” She shivered. “But happiness will come again.” She looked him in the eye. “Always does, however small.”

“Anythin’ coming our way soon?” She shook her head. He sighed dramatically. “Can’t be helped, then. Let’s be off, then, find someplace else for the next few days.”

They jumped a couple borders for the sake of doing so, picked up a new tent and some fresh trousers and did a spot of fingersmithing. They found another sheep farm and Dru took the time to play with the guard dog while Spike ate, and he kept it busy while she had her fill. They passed through tiny towns that would’ve been beneath their notice even two years earlier, skirted by grand cities they’d loved dancing around once upon a time that now likely didn’t have a single bloodsucker in residence, avoiding crowds if they could and keeping their heads down if they couldn’t, and days and weeks passed without a blink. With warm weather came more crowds, more people out walking through the world. Strange as it was to have a couple burst in off the street in the middle of the night during one of the coldest winters on record, the same act was downright ordinary when it was a slowly warming late April night and people didn’t have to be dead to enjoy sleeping outside.

It still helped, though.

Especially waking up to small rats or mice sniffing around a couple of corpses. If they moved fast enough, they got nearly a mouthful of good, fresh blood without the trouble of having to break into a barnyard.

May Day came as a bit of a surprise – though they could hear and smell the parade from the little shack they were using to hide from the day, they’d been accountably ignored in the planning stages, not alerted about the general proceedings. When the town marched through the streets and around the squares, all Spike and Dru could do was listen from afar to the cheering, the shouting, musicians and singers. Catch the aroma of generously spiced and smoked cooked meat and the smaller scents of a truly luscious volume of flowers spread through the place. All the planning had gone on without them.

“Oughta be used to it by now,” Spike said, wandering through the town’s streets hours later, with only a couple of street cleaners and a few drunken teens to keep them company. Nobody glanced their way. Could’ve been anyone at the parade earlier.

“Used to what, sweetheart?”

“Life.” He nudged a can aside with his foot, then kicked it to make it go sailing down an alley and over a wall. “Listenin’ to it happen around you, never really getting _inside_ it, not even close enough to it to realize it’s passing you by.”

“I remember how that used to hurt.” She began picking up the least bruised flowers. “Back when death was new.” Lots of reds, of course, but pinks and whites, too, and a few others scattered around – oranges, yellows, bits of green from the leaves. “I’ll not bother to teach you again, how to carry the weight of it and let your shoulders grow strong. I know I taught you well enough the first time.”

“You did,” he said, handing her a striped tulip she considered, then placed in the middle of the bouquet. “Not your fault I’ve been out of practice. Good luck to me, being _able_ to be out of practice.”

“Good luck to you for hardly needing to remember anymore,” she said as she handed him the bouquet to carry. As they kept walking, she kept gathering. “Easy to find yourself among those who’d have you never practice again. Forget all your old lessons.”

“Never,” he said. “Never all of them, never forget them forever. It’s just hard to get back to practicing them when things get rusty. Head back to the country, yeah? We’re getting into summer again. Go swimming.”

“No,” she shook her head. “No need for plans like that.” Walking nimbly through the churchyard, she lay the bouquets on otherwise empty graves, standing back to admire them. Spike looked at her smile. “Let’s be off, then. The moon’s whispering that time’s nearly up.”

“What’s nearly up, pet?”

“Time,” she said again. “Time as we know it, as we measure it, time as I held it once. A new way’s nearly arrived in the world. In hiding, like us, waiting to announce itself. It’s nearly gone, the last of the old, and the first of the new only know it well enough to know it won’t be missed.”

“Suppose there’s something to that,” Spike allowed.

“You’ll see,” she promised, and took his arm as they walked along. It wasn’t a big enough town for a lively nightlife, and it wasn’t so small there wasn’t anyone out, even beyond the cleaners – kids walking home drunk, bussers tossing garbage bags into dumpsters, a glimpse of a late-night watchman walking in down a dim hallway. A quiet people for a quiet night.

It was enough they risked it, heading to a city soon after, for a taste of that again. A pair of social junkies getting their fix. A city big enough for bike riders and taxi drivers and all-night counter service, barely a town by some American standards but a city, for this part of Poland. He and Dru slipped into one of those all-night diners well into the graveyard shift, ordering little and eating less, letting the quiet sounds and smells of the sleeping bodies all around them fill up their heads and calm Spike’s soul.

“Never thought it’d take so much upkeep,” he said as they lay together, fully clothed, waiting for morning to come. “Used to think, souls just took care of themselves.”

“Not in their nature,” she said. “Always been their work to take care of those looking after them. Neither half’s alone anymore. Make a new whole, a new song, for the newest creation.”

“What’d you have me sing to you tonight, ducks?”

“Whatever pleases your mouth to hold.”

He hummed, searching for something, trying to scour for a song he could sing quietly for her. Something where he knew all the words, however long or short it was. He’d called himself Sinatra, hadn’t he, “I know I said that I was leaving, but I just couldn’t –”

That got him an elbow to the stomach for his troubles, and he laughed quietly at Dru’s petulance. She resettled herself against him, a way to say _no hard feelings, just not that one, please._

He kept thinking. There were old folk songs from before either of them was alive, there were the standbys, there were ones he’d heard before he’d gone, there was –

Dru nudged him much more gently. “That one.”

He smiled into her hair, chattering like a bird to make her giggle. _That one_ he knew – he’d heard the singer on the radio, first, a long time ago, drifting through stations on his way back to Sunnydale from Brazil, a powerful voice, singing loud for the power of music in a way he didn’t heard much anymore, an echo of a time now long passed. That one, he knew from seeing her live, once, sometime back, two years ago, long before he’d killed those girls out in the forest. This one, he’d played over and over on his iPod, probably still in Buffy’s apartment in his bedside table, because he hadn’t wanted to lose it on the mission and he’d had the good sense to leave it behind where he’d remember where he’d put it last.

This one, he knew.

And he knew Dru liked her, too.

He sang quietly, right into her ear, “Specters move like pilot flames, their widows toast at St. Angel,” she went fully still, the stillness of the dead, “Better times collide with now, the tears were warm, I feel them still – their heat to vapor and disperse, and cloud our eyes with weary glaze.” He took a breath to fill his lungs.

“You raise your glass and may exclaim, _I’ll put my hands on the truth, by God!_ But it’s faster, love, than you and me, faster than the speed of gravity,” he let his voice start to carry, “That’s how it catches you from falling, and how it always, always, _always_ slips away…”

Up to the ceiling, echoing around the walls, he went loud, “Specters move like pilot flames, their widows toast at St. Angel! Better times collide with now, and better times, and _better times –”_ he took a breath and crooned right in her ear, “are coming still.”

Dru hummed, happily. “I like that one,” she said. “It sounds true.”

“I’m glad,” he told her, and they closed their eyes, holding each other close to sleep through the day.

They both knew it’d always been anomalous to be harmless. How once upon a time, taking out a vamp nest was a wise thing to do. How even now, it wasn’t always a bad decision. How not so long ago, staking the two of them while they slept would’ve tipped the scales of the world. Not anymore, not so much, not with Dru being as she was now, not with Spike making the choices he did. Not that most Slayers would stop and ask them.

How strange, to balance it all in his soul, to wish for so much and to understand every piece and part.

Not many days later, the two of them were in another empty building in another little town. They’d been talking about heading farther south as the days got longer – even things out a bit as best they could, avoid the sixteen-hour days that happened farther up the globe – when Spike walked by the late-night newsstand and spotted the English-language headline, doing a double-take and stopping to look long enough to believe his eyes.

In a font and size usually reserved for assassinations of presidents and kings and men walking on the moon, it said, _COUNCIL DISBANDED – LEAGUE ARISES._

He stopped, and stared, long enough to lose all feeling in his knees, before grabbing a copy for himself and then taking another one for good measure.

The stand’s man shouted at him in Polish as Spike left without paying. He flashed his fangs and snarled at him, shutting him up before running off into the night and finding the nearest streetlight to read the article carefully, his hands trembling as he took in her words.

_ELLIS ISLAND, New York City – In what may be the biggest company-wide reorganization in history and a change which goes far beyond the name, Buffy Summers’s announcement this Tuesday that the thousand-year-old Watchers Council, renamed the Slayer Council with its public reveal in 2005, is already well into the process of rebuilding itself as the Slayer League. Summers has no regret in the matter aside from her statement, “This is something which should have happened a long time ago.”_

Her first interview in ages. Her first time speaking to anyone from the press in over a year. Her words from her mouth, not a statement released from the central offices, not a soundbite, not a quip, not a representative speaking on her behalf.

Buffy Summers, and the rest of the League’s leadership, and _in the wake of May 2009_ and _press conference where her speech_ and _having to change_ and _not coming forward until she finished the work_ and the pictures of her, a full-color portrait on the front page and a spread of the press conference inside the main section, looking so much older than when he’d seen her last.

He read on: _As she explained, “I should have seen this coming. You have to understand, I was the last Slayer to be trained in the old methods. The last one who was taught to be a weapon, and the last one who knew she’d fight alone and live a short, dangerous life. I did what I did because I knew I didn’t want any Slayers after me to be hurt like I was. Training by torture, parts of it. Lots of it. The parts that weren’t…” Watching her speak, it’s often easy to forget her age – a woman who’s literally saved the world, and hasn’t yet seen thirty, a deliberately cultivated air of innocence and youth belied by her stature and poise._

_“There’s still some out there who think we needed to get back to the good old days, because those were all they knew. They never thought there could be another way of doing things. When I took control over the Council and all its resources, I wanted to use them for good, not just for Slayers, not just for Watchers, but for the world. You can’t rebuild a corrupt system from the top down with the tools the system gave you. I needed to look at what led to the system getting corrupted, and I had to find a way to fix that and keep it from happening again. And I realized I had to change everything. Its set-up and structure, its goals and rules and distribution of power. Why it exists, and who it serves.”_

Spike gave Dru her own copy to read, and in the faint light of day coming in through the old, ragged curtains, they each soaked in the words. Talk from Xander, Giles, Willow, even Wesley and Lorne and Robin and Faith, what was different, how things would change from here on out, the Slayers who’d spearheaded the would-be extinction campaign and the people who’d carried it on underneath Buffy’s nose for all those months.

_“It’s taken me this long to understand how it happened. People trying to fix a problem that didn’t need fixing. I know why Slayers exist. I know the damage that vampires can do. And I know there’s no way to make any moral equivalent between these. And – not but, and, always and, always. And, it still was a gross misuse of our capability and power, and we’ve already changed the world enough that this shouldn’t be something we should try to do. I’m not saying every vampire dusted these past two years was innocent. I’m saying, we can’t put ourselves above everyone, passing judgment. That’s not what we’ve ever been meant for. Not when it was one girl in all the world, not with the League now.”_

There was one specific topic of conversation she shut down as soon as it came up: _“I won’t be getting into that. I don’t have any words right now to talk about that subject, so please, don’t ask me again.”_

She went on, talking about the practical work of changing the power structure of the organization while still using its resources. Talking about regret that this had happened under her watch, that the old sins of the past were echoing again in the new world, that she hadn’t seen this coming. Describing the hope she had that the League might be what Slayers needed in the future, changing everything from the ground up, not just rebuilding, but also building anew.

It was over. It was done. He’d outlasted them, surviving long enough that they’d called it off before they had a chance to come close to dusting him again, saw it through to its ending. 

He could go back.

Hands trembling, Spike looked up at Dru, who looked at him with the most fragile hope and gentle love on her face. He wondered what she saw in his eyes and soul as the feelings about Buffy he’d pushed aside for months began a groundswell, threatening to break on his shores. For the first time in ages, there wasn’t reason to push them back. Just let them flow through him.

There weren’t any words for who he was to Drusilla. Who she was to him, there was a word for that – _sire _, a beautiful word, carrying so many shades of meaning and purpose from the practical to the fantastical. That was who she was to him. But there was nothing for who he was to her. Because vampires didn’t need such words. All he ever needed to say to another vampire, to anyone, was that he was hers, and it was fully understood. That he belonged to her. It was all that he’d ever needed.__

__The same was true with Buffy. He kept working it over in his head, on paper, scrawling it out in ink and pencil, and finding other grand words for all sorts of things, from the taste of sunshine as caught in a glass of dandelion wine to swimming on the ground by standing in the middle of a rainstorm to the weight of her hair as it caught in his fingers while it fell down her back, but never for who he and Buffy were to each other. There wasn’t such a word because they’d never needed one._ _

__He was hers, and that was all that mattered. All that mattered in the world._ _

__“Is this…” She nodded. “I didn’t think…” She shook her head. “And you…”_ _

__“I know,” she said. “Don’t worry for me, my shimmering, brave knight, my darling, my love. I’ve long since learned how to be alone. You gave me a respite, these months together, for all the work it took for our time together to be safe, it was wonderful. But I’ve not forgotten. And I won’t be alone, not forever. We’ll see each other again, I promise you, my William. Not soon. But someday.”_ _

__“Drusilla,” he said, then surged forward and kissed her – hands wrapped around her face, her lips and tongue soft against his, skin just as warm as his own, a knowing, happy, sorrowful goodbye kiss. He pulled back, and looked into the gentle, loving depths of Drusilla’s eyes. “I love you,” he said, for her to hear the words aloud._ _

__“And I love you,” she said, for the same reason. “And now I’ll say goodbye.”_ _

__“Farewell,” he said as as he left, taking nothing with him. Let the groundswell break. Let all the feelings about Buffy come to the surface, wash over him. Drusilla’s words hung gently in his mind, and he stopped at the doorway. He hesitated, ready to glance back and to be sure – but he kept going. Because there wasn’t any reason to look back, not with everything he had ahead waiting for him._ _


End file.
